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this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Stardew Valley
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All things Stardew Valley.
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I like how CA talks about farm types. I remember when I first played, I think there was just the one? Then I tried playing again and there were more.
I never got very far in Stardew Valley. The farming stuff seems like the most tedious and least interesting thing about the game, so if there's a way to make like an "automated farm" (which, I know, seems very much against the spirit of the game, at least the story beats in the prologue), that might get more casual players in.
I also play Animal Crossing, and the farming aspect there is very much optional. There's so much more to do. The same is technically true of Stardew, but the game pushes the farming aspect straight upon you directly after you gain control of your character. Whereas in Crossing, you land on a deserted island and are basically told "do whatever, but if you want, this is where we could grow as a community," Stardew is more like, "okay you inherited this farm, now you've got to support it or you won't last the winter." No, Stardew doesn't say that, but that's the impression that I get. So I'm thinking, the farm is automated but it's not very good, you wouldn't get the output a normal farm would, but you'd be able to upgrade the equipment and make it better, but the best automated farm wouldn't out-produce the best manual one (although IRL it probably would). Game balancing and whatnot. But then as you add land (IIRC that is something you can do), you could add the manual option later and do that as you like.
Later in the game you get a greenhouse where you can grow crops year-round, including crops that continually produce from 1 planting. Not needing to regrow those plants every season and getting crops in winter absolutely increases output.
But the point of automation is to reduce time needed for farming so you can either increase how much os planted or do something else with your limited time
Late game you can get Junimo Huts to harvest for you, you can also get add-ons to sprinklers to automatically fertilise the ground when you plant a seed.
I play with an automation mod that will pull things from chests into processors and then pull the finished item back out.
There is a hopper in vanilla that puts things into a processor but not take out the finished item.
Honestly, in the later game, it's all automation. Tne most efficient starting strategy is to grind fishing until lvl 5, acquire angler skill, sell all the fish you collected, buy a coop, passive income from chicken eggs - you can basically avoid manuak farming if you want to.
Don’t speed runners mine at the start of the game and skip farming entirely?
Not sure. I haven't seen that but i do tend to focus most of my energy on mining, which is a huge bonus because it's fun. I've heard from multiple different speedrun videos that fishing is the most profitabke activity, for basically all of year 1. It can get tedious, admittedly.
What activities you focus on depends on what your goals are for a run - i think most people aim for community centre completion, in which case they should do a minimal bit of farming. But then again, because of red cabbage scarcity you can usually only complete summer bundle in y2 so it makes a lot of sense to skip spring farming until year 2, which lines uo with what you said.
I woukd definitely grind mines and fishing if i was doing a joja run.
Everyone else is already talking about automating farming do I just wanted to chime in that fishing, ranching, and mining can also be reasonably lucrative. Fishing is the best way to get lots of money quick and the chests provide some neat little boosts to resources.
More importantly, I'm currently playing through with my focus on roleplay instead of efficiency. I picked the ranch style farm to start with chickens, I'm only planting in the greenhouse and in pots, and the rest of my land is going to be an orchard and arboretum. With all my farm only taking an hour to deal with, the rest of my day is spent taking cheese to Linus and the wizard or defending the town from monsters.
What I did last time I played was farm just a tiny bit of high value crops and whatever crops are needed for the community center until I was able to craft good sprinklers. And even then I farmed just enough for my needs until I got the greenhouse. The I basically only farmed grains and stuff outside. I farmed mining and fishing skills which seems more valuable. This made my second run of the fame much more enjoyable and less labourous.