400
Opinion of the Court
ent growers, who raise Holly Farms' broiler chickens on their own farms, are engaged in primary agriculture. But we confront no contention that Holly Farms' live-haul employees are themselves engaged in raising poultry.7 Thus, the only question we resolve is whether the chicken catchers, forklift operators, and truckdrivers are engaged in secondary agriculture—that is, practices "performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations." 29 U. S. C. § 203(f).
We take up, initially, the "performed by a farmer" strand of FLSA § 3(f). We do not labor over the point, for our decision in Bayside securely leads us to the conclusion that the live-haul activities are not performed "by a farmer." In Bayside, we considered the application of § 3(f)'s "by a farmer" specification to integrated agricultural companies that contract out farming work. We upheld the Board's rejection of the contention that "all of the activity on a contract farm should be regarded as agricultural activity of an integrated farmer" such as Holly Farms. 429 U. S., at 302. When an integrated poultry producer "contracts with independent growers for the care and feeding of [its] chicks, [its] status as a farmer engaged in raising poultry ends with respect to those chicks." Id., at 302, n. 9 (citing Imco Poultry, 202 N. L. R. B., at 260). Accordingly, when the live-haul employees arrive on the independent farms to collect broilers for carriage to slaughter and processing, Holly Farms does not resume its status as "farmer" with respect to those birds, the status Holly Farms had weeks before, when the birds
7 Holly Farms, it is true, ultimately argues that the catching and loading of broilers slated for slaughter constitute primary agriculture because those activities are best viewed as the "harvesting" of chickens. See Brief for Petitioners 29-30. But Holly Farms failed to advance this argument before the Court of Appeals, and it did not home in on this contention in its petition for certiorari. Because we "generally do not address arguments that were not the basis for the decision below," Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Epstein, 516 U. S. 367, 379, n. 5 (1996), we decline to entertain Holly Farms' primary farming argument.
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