[2021] Is farming worth it?

I believe the five-plants-per-seed we have now is meant to slow down what we had before: easy runaway exponential growth of plants. If you have to wait five growth cycles (without perks) for one plant to produce enough to make an additional plant, then you’re more likely to actually consume some of the plant’s yield, because you need the food in that time. And you’re more likely to appreciate finding additional seeds in loot, where yield from looting does not grow exponentially. The end result is that for most players, their farm still produces every three days, and it still grows over time. So farming is worth it in that sense. But they don’t grow massive fields that hurt performance.