Kenshi places great emphasis on farming. Farming involves gathering resources through farm building, which is directly related to harvesting resources in a timely manner.
Your recruits don’t man the fields constantly so you need to assign them to sow, harvest, and add water to produce foods for your team.
Environments
Crops can only grow in certain environments. Prospecting allows players to learn more about their surroundings and zone boundaries define environments.
| Environment | Cactus | Cotton | Greenfruit | Hemp | Riceweed | Wheatstraw |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arid | 100% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 0% | 60% |
| Green | 0% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 100% |
| Swamp | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 100% | 0% |
Kenshi Farming Guide
Nate Gaming made a list on how to farm in Kenshi properly:
Step 1: Find out which resource best suits your current environment and then build a well or rain collector. If you’re in an arid environment, the cactus is your best resource.
Step 2: Plant your farm using the build menu and assign a farmer to it then use the resources gained to build more farms and to upgrade the ones you have. Don’t forget to build storages for your farming resources.
Step 3: You want to have a farmer to farm ratio of four farms per one farmer and a farmer to cook ratio of two farmers per one cook (adjust as needed).
He also added:
- You can buy even more resources from a material trader to help with how quickly you upgrade your existing farms and get new ones.
- Hydroponics can be researched later to grow resources you normally wouldn’t be able to in certain environments.
How many farms can 1 farmer handle?
This is a direct quote from Michael. You can read the detailed guide here.
Hydroponic farms – 25-33 farms per 1 farmer
- They grow faster (5% per hour, traditional farms grow 4% per hour) and seem to be quicker to harvest.
- Michael’s farmers work at 1.3 speed, can manage 33 hydro farms on his own (594 crops), meaning that after he harvested the 33th farm, the first farm that he started at, has fully grown back and he starts to harvest that farm again.
- A farmer at 1.0 speed can manage around 25 hydro farms (450 crops). Note that some crops, like green fruit, arent harvestable for a very long time, but wheat is.
Riceweed L farms – 4 farms per 1 farmer
- A farmer at 1.0-1.3 speed (depends on farmers level) can handle 260-340 crops on his own, meaning that after he harvested 340 crops of riceweed, the first farm that he started at, has fully grown back and he starts to harvest that farm again.
So you don’t have to build more than 4 large riceweed farms (324 crops) per farmer. A farmer will level very quickly so my suggestion is to aim for 4 large farms directly (if you can afford that).
Hemp L farms – 4 farms per 1 farmer
- Same as Riceweed. See above.
Cactus XL farms – 4 farms per 1 farmer
- 1 farmer at a skill level that makes him work at 1.0x speed can handle ~3,75 farms, that’s 240 crops. A farmer that works at a speed of 1.3x, can handle 4,75 farms, that’s around 312 crops.
- Cactus seem to grow 4% per hour.
Wheat XL farms – 4-5 farms per 1 farmer
- 1 farmer harvesting speed of 1.0x can handle 4 farms, thats 400 crops. While a farmer at a harvesting speed of 1.2x or higher, can handle 5 farms, thats 500 crops.
- Wheat seems to grow 4% per hour.
Michael’s Note
- Use Hive Drone Workers as your farmers! They not only level 20% faster, but they do things 20% better as well. This is true for everything else, if you want a good thieve, use one that has Racial XP x1.200 bonus in thievery. Two Hive Drones Workers can be recruited in Clownsteady and one, Beep, can be found in Mongrel.
- Don’t forget to set up lights, indoors and outdoors around your farms. Working in darkness, at night or indoors, affects efficiency negatively.
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