40d:Grower

A grower is a dwarf with the farming fields task enabled (which is used so dwarves can build farm plots and plant seeds. A high level of growing skill allows a dwarf to plant seeds at a faster rate, and collect larger stacks of plants, increasing food output. Skilled growers can be brought along as your starting dwarves to help produce food early on to keep your dwarves fed and to attract migrants.

As mentioned, higher-skilled growers are more likely to produce stacks of several plants instead of single plants. This increases not only raw food output, but also overall food production efficiency, since brewers, cooks, and threshers perform tasks with a single stack at a time. For example, to brew five separate plump helmets requires five visits to the still, and will make five lots of dwarven wine[5], using five barrels. One stack of plump helmet[5] can be brewed, in a single action, into one lot of dwarven wine[25], using a single barrel. High-skilled growers can potentially save 16 trips making your fort much more efficient. (5 harvest plant, 5 get plump helmets, 5 get barrel, 5 store barrel; 1 harvest plant, 1 get plump helmet, 1 get barrel, 1 store barrel).

Nobles and other non-farm workers can gain grower skill by harvesting. Over time, they'll actually become quite good at it.