Thread: How useful is farming?

My main is a Woodsman so I can farm but can't cook. It's super easy to grind farming up to Westfold but I'm just wondering if its worth it. Since I have no use for the things I farm, I'm looking to eventually sell them. Do higher level (Supreme, Westfold) farmed items sell for anything respectable at the AH? I'm probably going to get up to Westfold master anyway but I'm just curious.

I'd have to say that without a need for the results of farming, it's likely a waste of your time. Farmed crops do not sell for much on AH (though admittedly, I have not checked prices in quite some time). If gold is your goal, I am certain you can gain ten times as much gold by investing an hour farming humanoids in Isengard or the Great River than you would gain from the same amount of time spent farming crops in Hobbiton.

One non-cooking consideration, however, is the production of dye components for a scholar, should you have one of those. Given the time, the inclination, and the crafting ingredients, a scholar can generate a steady stream of income from selling dyes through the Auction House. A Westfold-tier farmer is a dye-maker's best friend.

It is useful to have a farmer (alt, kin, friend) for those times the AH does not have any of a certain crop you need to make whatever your cook wants to make. Having a cook is VERY helpful. This AH shortage CAN happen quite a bit. So, for instance, there were no green onions in the AH, get your farmer to make some. Might as well make a bunch, then put the excess in the AH. It is win/win, supply your cook and get a few silver for the trouble.

Now you could just buy the food in the AH, and that would make your farmer extraneous. AH food (and especially dye components) are usually pricey though.

Maybe depend the server, always check the AH. From my point of view (I mastered all crafting vocations) is not worth it. Infact if you want to lvl farming just buy enough seeds and let him farm nonstop while you do something useful irl.

Of course there are always people who sell overpriced barley and maybe some lazy ones could buy it.
Maybe selling dye ingredients but only for lazy Historians, most dyes aren't very expensive too so people don't craft many of those because the rare ingredients.

Prolly you can make more money doing something else.

My alt is a farmer and it's very useful for my cook, but if you've only got one toon it's pretty pointless. Better to learn a craft where you can make superior items for you characters, such as jeweller a tailor or a metalsmith.

I have a cook and a scholar and I would never consider doing either of those crafts seriously without a farmer.

Of course, farming is mind-numbingly boring and not as easy to walk away from as other crafts. I wish Westfold's induction bars hadn't been made slower than the previous tiers, which were already ridiculously slow. In Guild Wars 2, the longer you craft, the faster the induction bar flies and the sooner you get done.

Farming from when I have done it is good for:
- Spring Barley that is needed by several lower ranked Cook recipes.
- There is a rare item produced called Bundle of Straw when Farming certain things, Weaponsmiths need it to make Lure Traps.
- Beer though you will need a Cook.
- You can do what I have seen a couple of Jewelers do on my server, instead of the AH you simply spend some time near a Farming area and advertise on a channel that you would make some items for low cost, I saw Jewelers who said they would turn low grade stones into polished ones for a flat low fee. If no one shows up on a day, just go off Questing, skirmishing, what ever. I believe the channel used the the Trade one.
- Pipe-weed, it doesn't require any other profession to make and you could sell of the extra even without the AH, just do it over the Trade channel. I remember making 200 bags of pipe-weed just because I could (not all in one sitting).

Tier 7 Farming + Dunland rep gets you a recipe to make the items required for dyes. If you're not going to be cooking, make these, sell them on the AH. The prices have been dropping steadily, but there is still a large market for it.

Depending on your server, prices might be OK; occasionally ludicrously high if people are too lazy to farm for themselves. It might be worth a trip down to the AH and see what your goods would potentially sell for; keep in mind that T7 crops take about twice the time to farm as tiers 1-6, and they don't sell for twice the price (usually)

Like others have mentioned, killing Lvl 75 orcs or goblins will net you more gold over time; without having to wait for stuff to sell in the AH.

I got a guilded cook and can tell you, that a serious cook will need tons of black barley. If you want to make money, i would try to sell black barley (never did this though as i can get gold with my 75 toon verry fast). You need 2 bundles of black barley to make 1 cup of black barley flour, 2 cups of black barley flour to get 1 loaf of barley bread and 2 loafs of barley bread to get 1 cup uf Bread crumps. You need these ingredients very often (especially if you are in the cooking guild).
At Westfold you can process 5 fair crops at a time, which saves a lot of time. You should better have enough "clump of peat" though, otherwise it would take too long.
I would pay up to 5s each black barley but I saw it for 20s each at the AH a few times (dont know if it got sold).
If you are a high level player, there will be better ways to get gold, but for a low level player it might be an easy way to make some money.

If you don't have a cook, farming isn't really all that useful. I have a cook and it's often easier to just farm up the materials I need than it is to try and find them on the AH. I can farm everything I need while watching TV or something. I end up doing a couple of hours of farming every couple of months for materials.

The AH prices are really low for farm output that also has rare side effect output that are used by Scholars to make dyes. These players have a scholar and farm the hell out of e.g. strawberries to get the juicy strawberry. Then they are left with stacks of berries they have to dump somewhere.

Both barleys are OK. Good sells are farming things that are needed by cook guild recipes in tiers 3-5 because they aren't as obvious but the occasional farmerless cook still needs them.