How to Build a Simple Farm: Early Game Food

Once you’ve survived your first few days in Minecraft and familiarised yourself with the game, it’s time to set up a permanent base. For most players, this means creating a farm with fields and animals. This provides not only a place to live but also renewable sources of food and other resources. In this post, we’ll guide you step-by-step on how to set up and run your own farm easily. This will give you a wonderful foundation for all your future endeavours, so you no longer have to worry about food procurement or proper housing.

Basics for a Farm

A good location is crucial for a farm. Take some time to wander around until you find a suitable spot. It should preferably be flat, but you can also use a shovel to remove or add dirt to create an appropriate area for your farm. A small house and some chests for essential tools are a good idea. Build your farm near a water source, as you’ll need it soon.

Other tools you should prepare for a farm:

• Fences and Gates
• Bucket
• Shovel
• Hoe
• Possibly Gravel
• Possibly Bone Meal

Setting Up Your Own Fields

Once you have made all the preparations, you can lay out your field. Choose a flat and open area to start. It’s important to understand how water behaves in Minecraft. If you use a water source and pour it into a trench for your farm, it will flow for eight blocks. Based on this, farm fields can be irrigated with up to four blocks of distance from the water source. This is important to ensure that they do not revert to dirt or that your crops grow slower.

To begin, a single water source is enough. This can irrigate a 9x9 field adequately. You can use the entire area as a field or add paths with a shovel or gravel for decoration. Additionally, you should fence off the field with gates so that only you can use it.

Feel free to design your layout. If you’ve already found a village, you might want to take inspiration from their fields! Otherwise, the appearance is entirely up to you. Just keep in mind how far the soil is irrigated.

These are the crops you can grow:

With the hoe, you can right-click to turn grass, dirt, or any other form of soil into farmland. This is your starting point for your farm. Let’s quickly go through all the crops you can grow.

Wheat:

• Location: As wheat seeds from grass
• Use: Bread, Hay Bales, Cake, Cookies, Animal breeding

Carrot:

• Location: Village, Zombies, Chest
• Use: Golden Carrot, Rabbit Stew, Carrot on a Stick, Animal breeding

Potato:

• Location: Village, Zombies, Chest
• Use: Baked Potato, Animal breeding

Beetroot:

• Location: Beetroot seeds from village, Chest
• Use: Animal breeding, Red Dye, Beetroot Soup

Pumpkin Seeds:

• Location: Village, Wilderness
• Use: Pumpkin Head, Pumpkin Pie

Melon Seeds:

• Location: Village, Jungle
• Use: Melon Slice, Glistering Melon Slice

Tip: Plant different crops next to each other to accelerate growth! This mechanic mimics real farms, where mixed crops grow better. Monoculture is less effective; add some variety to your field.

Maintenance and Harvesting

Once your field is properly set up and irrigated, not much can go wrong. Wait until your first harvest is ready. This can take several days. Using bone meal, which we mentioned earlier, can speed up the ripening process. You get this either from skeleton bones or by using compost.

You’ll recognise ripeness by the growth stage. If the colour of the vegetable is already showing, it’s time! Harvest with a left-click. You will get either multiple items at once or additional seeds. Depending on the crop, you can replant these and likely have a good surplus as profit.

Breeding Your First Livestock

For food, you don’t necessarily need to set up fields; you can also keep animals. However, the field will be important for breeding animals, as you’ll need food to reproduce them.

Animals are not only good for food but also for other essential resources. Once you have two adult animals of a kind, you’re well-equipped. By breeding them, you can easily increase your stock. Keep the animals in a fenced area so they don’t run away. The field can be as large or as small as you like, but give your virtual animals some space.

Breed the animals by right-clicking on two animals with their food. They will then show hearts, and voilà! A baby animal is born! You’ll also gain some experience. The baby animal will grow within a few minutes.

Livestock and Their Resources

Here’s a quick overview of the most important animals you should look for. You can lure them to your farm with their favourite food or using a lead if you already have one. To get the products, you need to kill the animals. Cook the meat in a furnace to make it healthier for you.

Cows:

• To breed: Wheat
• Products: Raw Beef, Leather, Milk

Pigs:

• To breed: Carrots, Potatoes, Beetroots
• Products: Raw Porkchop

Sheep:

• To breed: Wheat
• Products: Raw Mutton, Wool (also possible without killing using shears)

Chickens:

• To breed: Any type of seeds
• Products: Raw Chicken, Feathers, Eggs (laid by chickens)

Conclusion

Your first farm will likely also be your very first permanent home in Minecraft and provides a wonderful foundation from which to expand and explore the world. With a well-stocked field and livestock, you create a good basis for food procurement and some other resources needed later on. You can also build your farm with others. Imagine building your farm on your own server, where you set the rules and collaborate with friends. Rent your Minecraft server now and get the most out of your game!