Sickle Farm Tool: Types, Uses and How to Choose One

A sickle farm tool is a one-handed, curved blade on a short handle. The cutting edge sits on the inside of the curve, so you hold a bunch of stems with your free hand and cut them close to the ground. It is still the right tool for small plots, herbs, fodder and field edges: in a 2021 field study in Benin, cutting a hectare of rice with a sickle or a cutlass took 59 to 91 person-hours.

This guide covers the five main types of sickle and what each one is best for, how to choose one, how to cut and sharpen safely, and when a scythe or a machine makes more sense. A calculator lets you estimate how long hand harvesting will take on your own plot.

What a sickle farm tool is used for

The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford describes the sickle as a curved, hand-held tool for harvesting cereal crops or cutting grass for hay, with the inside of the curve as the cutting edge. On a modern farm or market garden, it does five main jobs:

1. Reaping small grain plots. Wheat, barley, oats, rice and millet on test plots, seed plots, terraces or fields too small for a combine.
2. Cutting green fodder. Grass, legumes and crop residue cut by the armful for animals.
3. Harvesting herbs, flowers and greens. Crops such as lavender, cut flowers, and leafy greens that are cut a few handfuls at a time.
4. Weeding and edging. Clearing weeds along fences, ditches, field margins and around posts where a mower cannot reach.
5. Cutting cover crops and seed heads. Taking samples, cutting seed heads for saving, or knocking down a small strip of cover crop.

The tool is very old. A 2026 study in Scientific Reports examined flint sickle blades from the Natufian culture of the southern Levant, dated to about 15,000 to 11,700 years ago, and found wear patterns left by harvesting cereals. Iron and steel blades came much later. In England, a Museum of English Rural Life note quoted by the museum says the smooth-edged reaping hook replaced the serrated sickle for reaping corn in many places around 1860 to 1870, and scythes and then machines took over larger fields.

Five types of sickle and what each is best for

Names vary between countries and makers. This guide sorts farm and garden sickles into five groups. The table gives the short version.

1. Serrated sickle

Best for: grain plots, rice, herbs and stems that slip away from a smooth blade.

The teeth grip the stems, so you hold a handful and pull the blade toward you in a sawing motion. The Pitt Rivers Museum describes the sickle cutting through cereal stems with this sawing action. A serrated edge is not filed like a plain edge, so check the maker’s care instructions before you sharpen it.

Pros: grips slippery or thin stems; works at a slow, controlled pace. Cons: slower than slashing on thick, open growth; harder to resharpen.

2. Smooth-edged reaping hook (fagging hook)

Best for: thick straw, hedge bottoms and crops close to walls or fences.

According to a Museum of English Rural Life note quoted by the Pitt Rivers Museum, the fagging hook is heavier and wider than a sickle. The worker held the stalks back with a short hooked stick and slashed through the straw instead of sawing it. More was cut with each swing, but time went into sharpening. The museum notes these hooks are still used for trimming hedges and cutting crops near hedges or walls that machines cannot reach.

Pros: fast on dense growth; good reach. Cons: needs a keen edge and frequent honing; a slashing swing needs more space and care.

3. Thin smooth sickle

Best for: weeding beds, cutting soft grass, salad crops and vegetables.

This is a light blade, often sold as a Japanese-style sickle, used with a pulling slice close to the soil. It is easy to sharpen with a file or whetstone. A thin blade can chip if it hits stones or woody stems, so keep it for soft growth.

Pros: light; precise around crop plants; easy to hone. Cons: fragile on woody stems; dulls quickly in gritty soil.

4. Brush or grass hook

Best for: brambles, tall weeds, rough banks and ditches.

A thicker, heavier blade, sometimes on a longer handle, that you swing to chop rather than pull. It is closer to a light slasher than to a harvesting sickle, and it is not the right choice for grain you want to keep in neat bundles.

Pros: tough; clears woody growth. Cons: heavier and more tiring; less precise near crops.

5. Harvest knife

Best for: cutting rice panicles or seed heads one at a time.

A FAO grain harvesting guide notes that a special harvest knife is used in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa to cut rice stem by stem. It leaves most of the straw in the field, but FAO calls the method labour intensive.

Pros: picks only ripe heads; leaves straw for grazing. Cons: slower than a sickle on a whole field.

How to choose a sickle farm tool

Start with the crop and the job, then check the blade and handle. These points cover most buying decisions:

• Edge. Serrated for grain and stems that slip; smooth for weeds, grass and anything you want to hone in the field.
• Blade length. Short blades give control around crop plants and in tight beds. Longer blades cut a bigger handful but take more effort at the end of a long day.
• Blade thickness. Thin blades slice soft growth well but chip on stones and woody stems. Choose a thicker blade for brambles and banks.
• Steel. Carbon steel is easy to file to a keen edge but rusts if it is put away wet. Stainless steel resists rust; ask how the maker recommends sharpening it.
• Handle. It should fill your hand without forcing a tight grip, and the blade should be fixed firmly. Wood is easy to replace; plastic and composite handles need less care.
• Hand. Some sickles are shaped for right-handed use only. If you are left-handed, check the listing before you buy.
• Sheath. A blade cover makes the tool much safer to carry and store.

If you only buy one, a serrated sickle suits most grain and herb work, and a smooth thin sickle suits most weeding and vegetable work. Buy a brush hook only if you clear rough ground often.

Sickle vs scythe vs machine: when each makes sense

A sickle is one-handed and cuts a handful at a time. A scythe has a long handle and a long blade swung with both hands, and the Pitt Rivers Museum notes it replaced the sickle on many English farms in the nineteenth century because it was more comfortable to use. Machines then took over larger fields.

The numbers show why. In the 2021 Benin field study in the CIGR Journal, hand cutting with a sickle or cutlass took 59 to 91 person-hours per hectare, depending on the rice variety. The sickle gave significantly better harvesting efficiency than the cutlass on both varieties (field efficiency ranged from 78.9% for the cutlass on IR841 to 85.3% for the sickle on Nerica L20). For denser rice stands, the FAO guide gives 100 to 200 person-hours per hectare for cutting with a sickle and stacking the sheaves. By contrast, it gives an output of 4 to 10 hours per hectare for simple reapers and reaper-binders, which FAO still calls slow.

The same Benin study measured how hard each job is on the body. Cutting with a sickle had a lower peak energy expenditure rate than cutting with a cutlass, and both were far harder work than running a mini combine.

So a sickle makes sense for plots of a few hundred square metres, for selective harvest, and where machines cannot go. For whole fields of grain, the labour adds up fast. Use the calculator below with your own numbers.

Chart

How hard each rice harvest job is on the body

Mean energy expenditure of workers, watts; low and high value across two rice varieties, farmer fields in Benin

Try the numbers for your own farm below.

How to use a sickle safely

The main risk with a sickle is a cut to the fingers, hand or legs. In a survey of 500 farmers in one village in eastern Nepal, published in 2016 in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, hand tools such as sickles, axes and spades caused the injuries of 74.7% of the 345 farmers injured in the past year. Cuts made up 79.7% of these injuries; fingers (43.8%) and legs (30.5%) were the most injured body parts. Only 35% of the farmers used any protective equipment, and of those, 1.7% wore gloves.

Chart

What caused farm injuries in rural Nepal

Share of injured farmers by mode of injury in the past 12 months (n = 345 injured of 500 surveyed in one village), %

The US OSHA guide to hand and power tools makes two points that apply directly: the greatest hazards from hand tools come from misuse and poor maintenance, and dull tools can be more dangerous than sharp ones. Follow these steps:

1. Wear a cut-resistant glove on the hand that holds the stems, and eye protection when clearing brush.
2. Keep the blade path clear of your body. Hold the stems above where the blade will pass, and draw the blade so its path ends clear of your knees and feet.
3. Keep your distance. OSHA advises directing tools away from people working close by, so leave clear space between workers in a row.
4. Keep the edge sharp. A dull blade needs more force and is more likely to bounce or slip.
5. Carry and store it covered. Use a sheath, carry the blade pointing down and away from you, and never leave a sickle lying in cut crop or grass.
6. Take breaks. Stooped cutting is hard work. Swap tasks or rest before your grip gets tired.

How to sharpen and care for a sickle

The Kansas State University guide to cleaning and sharpening garden tools (2018) gives a method for pruners and digging tools that can be applied to a plain-edged sickle:

Infographic

Sharpening a plain-edged sickle in 5 steps

1. 1CleanScrub off sap and soil and remove rust.
2. 2ClampFix the blade in a vise; wear gloves.
3. 3FileFollow the bevel, about 10 to 20 degrees, coarse to fine.
4. 4DeburrRun a fine file lightly over the back.
5. 5ProtectDry the blade and oil it before storage.

1. Clean the blade. Scrub off sap and soil, dry it, and remove rust with steel wool.
2. Clamp it. Fix the sickle in a vise or clamps. If you have none, wear gloves on both hands and work slowly, because a moving blade makes it hard to keep the angle and can cause injury.
3. File at the bevel angle. Hold the file at the same angle as the existing bevel, normally 10 to 20 degrees. Start with a coarse file and move to a finer one.
4. Remove the burr. Run a fine file or stone lightly over the back of the blade.
5. Check the edge. Hold it up to the light: if light reflects off the edge, it is not yet sharp. Do not grind the bevel thinner than about 1 mm, or the edge becomes fragile.
6. Protect it. Wipe the blade dry after each use and coat it lightly with oil or a dry lubricant before storage.

For a serrated sickle, follow the maker’s instructions rather than filing it like a plain edge.

Why hand tools still matter on many farms

On large grain farms in North America, Europe and Australia, combines do almost all the cutting. Elsewhere, human power still does much of the field work. A 2005 FAO report on farm power in sub-Saharan Africa estimated that in the late 1990s, 65% of the cultivated area in the region was prepared by hand, 25% with draught animals and 10% with tractors. Those shares are for land preparation, not harvest, but they show how much farm work still depends on hand tools.

Chart

How land was prepared in sub-Saharan Africa

Share of cultivated area by power source, late 1990s estimate, %

On farms of any size, a sickle also has a place for jobs machines do badly: cutting small seed and test plots, harvesting herbs and flowers in stages, and clearing the edges around posts and ditches.

▶ What farm machinery and new technology change for farm jobs and rural towns. · 3:50

Where satellite monitoring fits on a hand-harvested farm

A sickle does the cutting, but deciding when and where to cut is a separate job. Satellite crop maps can show which parts of a field are maturing or stressed, so you walk to the right patch first. The Farmonaut Satellite + AI Farm Monitoring System maps crop health from satellite images on the phone or web. It shows where crops are changing, not why, so you still need to check in the field.

Other Farmonaut pages cover the admin app for agribusinesses, the satellite and weather API docs (and the API sign-up page), and topics such as carbon footprinting, product traceability, fleet management and crop loan and insurance.

▶ A short explainer on how satellite NDVI maps show crop stress across a field before it is easy to see on foot. · 4:09

How we checked the numbers

We did not test or rank branded products, and this page gives no product scores. The sickle types draw on museum and FAO descriptions where these exist. Labour and energy figures come from the 2021 Benin field study in the CIGR Journal and the FAO grain harvesting guide. Injury figures come from the 2016 Nepal farmer survey. Safety and sharpening steps follow the OSHA hand tool guide and the Kansas State University extension guide. Each figure is dated to its source, and studies from one country or one season may not match your farm.

FAQ

What is a sickle used for in agriculture?

Cutting grain and rice on small plots, cutting grass and green fodder for animals, harvesting herbs and flowers in stages, and clearing weeds along fences, ditches and field edges.

What is the difference between a sickle and a scythe?

A sickle has a short handle and a small curved blade used with one hand while the other holds the stems. A scythe has a long handle and a long blade swung with both hands while you stand upright, so it covers ground faster.

Is a serrated or smooth sickle better?

Serrated is better for grain, rice and stems that slip, because the teeth grip as you pull. Smooth is better for weeds, grass and vegetables, and it is easier to sharpen in the field.

How long does it take to harvest a hectare with a sickle?

It depends on the crop. A 2021 Benin study measured 59 to 91 person-hours per hectare of rice with a sickle or cutlass. FAO gives 100 to 200 person-hours per hectare for dense rice, including stacking the sheaves.

How do I sharpen a sickle?

Clean and clamp it, file along the existing bevel at about 10 to 20 degrees from coarse to fine, remove the burr from the back, and oil the blade. Follow the maker’s instructions for serrated blades.

How do I avoid cutting myself?

Wear a cut-resistant glove on the holding hand, keep the blade sharp, cut so the blade path ends away from your legs, keep space between workers, and carry the sickle in a sheath.