Smarter Farmers Mod Guide: Villager Farming AI Overhaul
Smarter Farmers completely overhauls how Farmer Villagers interact with crops, turning them from unreliable field workers into genuinely useful farm hands. Farmers will now harvest mature crops and replant them, pick up and eat food to heal themselves, till Dirt into Farmland, and even work with modded crops from other mods. If you've ever been frustrated by Villagers ignoring your fields, this mod fixes that.
Overview
Smarter Farmers is a quality-of-life mod that replaces the vanilla Farmer Villager AI with a significantly improved version. In vanilla Minecraft, Farmer Villagers have notoriously unreliable crop-harvesting behavior. They often ignore mature crops, fail to replant, and generally underperform. This mod fixes all of that by giving Farmers a complete behavior overhaul.
The mod doesn't add any new items, blocks, or crafting recipes. Instead, it works entirely behind the scenes to make your existing Farmer Villagers smarter. Farmers will now properly harvest mature crops and replant them using seeds from their inventory, intelligently matching the crop type already growing in nearby plots. They'll also eat food to heal themselves when injured, hold the appropriate tier of Hoe for their profession level, and avoid trampling Farmland. On top of all that, the mod includes built-in compatibility with popular farming mods like Farmer's Delight, Immersive Weathering, and Supplementaries.
Getting Started
- 1
Install and Go
Smarter Farmers is a drop-in mod with zero configuration required. Once installed, all Farmer Villagers in your world automatically receive the improved AI. You don't need to craft anything, toggle any settings, or interact with Villagers in any special way. Existing Farmers in already-loaded chunks will use the new behavior immediately.
- 2
Set Up a Farm with a Farmer Villager
Create a standard crop farm with Farmland and plant your crops. Make sure you have a Villager with the Farmer profession (assigned via a Composter workstation). The Farmer needs access to the crops and should be able to pathfind to them. Give the Farmer some seeds by dropping them nearby so they pick them up.
- 3
Stock Seeds in the Farmer's Inventory
The smarter Farmer will try to replant using seeds that match the crops already growing nearby. If you have a Wheat field, drop Wheat Seeds near the Farmer so they pick them up. The Farmer will then prioritize planting the most common crop type in the surrounding area. If no matching seeds are available, they'll use whatever seeds they have on hand.
- 4
Let the Farmer Work During Daytime
Farmers only perform their farming tasks during their work schedule (daytime). They will scan a 3x3x3 area around themselves for valid farmland with mature crops, harvest them, and replant. Each harvest action takes about 2 seconds (40 ticks) by default once the Farmer reaches the crop. Keep your farm plots relatively close together so the Farmer can efficiently move between them.
- 5
Drop Food for Healing
If your Farmer takes damage (from mobs, falls, or other hazards), they can now eat food from their inventory to heal. Drop common food items like Bread, Carrots, Potatoes, or Baked Potatoes near the Farmer. They will pick these up and eat them when their health drops below maximum. This makes Farmers much more durable and self-sustaining.
Improved Harvesting Behavior
The core improvement in Smarter Farmers is a completely rewritten harvesting AI. The mod replaces the vanilla HarvestFarmland behavior with a custom version called SFHarvestFarmland. When a Farmer Villager is working, they scan a 3x3x3 cube around their current position looking for actionable crop blocks. The Farmer evaluates each position and decides on one of three possible actions: harvest and replant, harvest only, or plant a new crop in an empty spot.
For standard crops on Farmland (Wheat, Carrots, Potatoes, Beetroot, and modded crops), the Farmer will harvest the mature crop and immediately replant using seeds from their inventory. The replanting logic is surprisingly smart. The Farmer looks at all the crops growing in a 3x3 area around the target position and counts which crop type appears most often, then tries to plant that type first. This means if you have a Wheat field with one empty spot, the Farmer will prioritize Wheat Seeds over other seeds they might be carrying.
Sweet Berry Bush Harvesting
Farmers will also harvest Sweet Berry Bushes when they reach age 2 (the stage where berries are visible but not fully grown in vanilla). This is handled automatically, and the bush is left in place to regrow.
Pumpkin and Melon Harvesting
Pumpkins and Melons are tagged as harvestable on Dirt without replanting. This means Farmers will break mature Pumpkin and Melon blocks that have grown on Dirt adjacent to their stems, but won't try to replant them (since they grow from stems, not seeds in the ground). The Farmer will also till the Dirt block below into Farmland after harvesting.
Grass and Fern Clearing
Grass and Fern blocks are tagged as special harvestable plants. If a Farmer encounters these growing on or near farmland, they'll clear them out. This keeps your farm tidy and prevents Grass from blocking crop spots.
By default, the mod overrides the Mob Griefing gamerule for Villagers picking up items. Even if you have Mob Griefing set to false (to prevent Creeper explosions, for example), Farmer Villagers will still be able to pick up food and seeds from the ground. This is controlled by the pickup_food_override config option and is necessary for Villagers to breed and farm properly when Mob Griefing is disabled.
Food and Healing System
One of the most impactful additions is the ability for Villagers to eat food and heal. In vanilla Minecraft, injured Villagers have no way to recover health on their own (outside of splash Potions or natural regeneration from full saturation, which they can't easily get). Smarter Farmers adds an EatFoodGoal behavior that lets Villagers consume food items from their inventory when their health is below maximum.
The eating behavior has several conditions. The Villager must have taken damage recently (within the last 400 ticks), must not currently be in their rest activity (sleeping), must not be walking somewhere or interacting with something, and must have food in their inventory. When all conditions are met, the Villager will pull a food item from their inventory, hold it in their main hand, and spend about 4 seconds (80 ticks) eating with visible eating particles. After finishing, the food is consumed and the Villager heals. There's then a cooldown of roughly 80 to 300 ticks before they'll eat again.
What Villagers Will Eat
During initialization, the mod scans all registered items and adds any edible item of Common rarity to the Villager's accepted food list. However, it excludes meat items (tagged as forge:food/meat, which includes Porkchop, Beef, Chicken, Rabbit, Mutton, and Fish), Bowl Food items (like Mushroom Stew and Rabbit Stew), and Honey Bottles. The healing value of each food is calculated as two-thirds of its nutrition value, with a minimum of 1 health point. This means Bread (nutrition 5) heals about 3 health, a Baked Potato (nutrition 5) heals about 3, and a Golden Carrot (nutrition 6) heals about 4.
Farmland Protection and Cactus Immunity
Farmer Villagers with this mod installed will never trample Farmland. In vanilla, any mob (including Villagers) can trample Farmland back into Dirt by jumping or falling on it. This mod overrides the trample check specifically for Farmer-profession Villagers, so they can walk across your fields without destroying the tilled soil. Other Villager professions and mobs can still trample as normal.
Farmers are also immune to Cactus damage. This is a small but useful change. If you have a desert village or your farm is near Cacti, your Farmer won't slowly lose health from brushing against them. Combined with the food-healing system, this makes Farmers significantly more survivable.
Farmer Villagers hold a Hoe while working, and the tier matches their profession level. Novice Farmers (level 1) hold a Stone Hoe, Apprentice Farmers (level 2) hold an Iron Hoe, Journeyman Farmers (level 3) hold a Wooden Hoe, Expert Farmers (level 4) hold a Gold Hoe, and Master Farmers (level 5) hold a Diamond Hoe. This is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect farming speed, but it's a nice visual indicator of your Farmer's experience.
Hoe Tier by Farmer Level
| Level 1 (Novice) | Stone Hoe |
| Level 2 (Apprentice) | Iron Hoe |
| Level 3 (Journeyman) | Wooden Hoe |
| Level 4 (Expert) | Gold Hoe |
| Level 5 (Master) | Diamond Hoe |
Mod Compatibility
Smarter Farmers includes extensive compatibility with other popular mods through block tags. You can also add your own blocks to these tags using datapacks if a modded crop isn't supported out of the box.
Farmer's Delight
Rich Soil Farmland is recognized as valid farmland that Farmers can work on, and Rich Soil is included in the farmland Dirt tag. This means Farmers will properly harvest and replant crops grown on Farmer's Delight's enhanced soil blocks.
Immersive Weathering
Mulch and Mulch Blocks are recognized as valid farmland for planting. Weeds from Immersive Weathering are also tagged as harvestable on Dirt without replanting, so Farmers will clear them from fields.
Supplementaries
Both Planters and Rich Soil Planters from Supplementaries are recognized as valid farmland blocks.
HeftyCrops and Overweight Farming
Oversized crop blocks from both HeftyCrops (Hefty Beetroot, Hefty Carrot, Hefty Potato, Hefty Cocoa, Hefty Cabbage, Hefty Onion, Hefty Tomato) and Overweight Farming (Overweight Tomato, Onion, Carrot, Cabbage, Ginger, Beetroot, Cocoa, Potato blocks) are all tagged as harvestable on Dirt with replanting support.
Quark
The mod has built-in Quark integration. If Quark's Simple Harvest module is enabled with the "Villagers use Simple Harvest" option, Farmer Villagers will use Quark's auto-replant system instead of the mod's own replanting logic. This prevents conflicts between the two systems.
Configuration Options
The mod has a small but meaningful set of configuration options in the smarterfarmers-common.toml config file. All settings are under the [general] section.
Configuration Settings
| pickup_food_override | true (default) — Villagers pick up food regardless of Mob Griefing gamerule |
| eat_food | true (default) — Villagers eat food to heal when injured |
| time_to_harvest | 40 ticks / 2 seconds (default, range: 1–1000) — Time for a Farmer to harvest after reaching the crop |
| debug_renderer | false (default) — Shows debug overlays for Farmer behavior in singleplayer |
The mod prevents Farmer Villagers from using Bone Meal on crops that are tagged as harvestable on Dirt without replanting (Pumpkins, Melons, Weeds). This stops Farmers from wasting Bone Meal on blocks that will just be broken and not replanted.
Block Tags Reference
Smarter Farmers uses five block tags to control Farmer behavior. These can be extended via datapacks to add support for any modded crop or farmland block.
Block Tags
| harvestable_plant | harvestable_on_dirt | harvestable_on_dirt_no_replant | farmer_plantable_on | farmland_dirt | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Crops on Farmland that Farmers can harvest | Crops on Dirt that Farmers harvest and replant | Blocks on Dirt that Farmers harvest but don't replant | Blocks recognized as valid farmland | Dirt-type blocks for dirt-based harvesting |
| Default Entries | Grass, Fern | HeftyCrops items, Overweight Farming blocks | Pumpkin, Melon, Weeds | Farmland, Mulch, Planters, Rich Soil Farmland | Dirt, Rich Soil |
| Replants | Depends on crop type | Yes | No | N/A | N/A |
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this mod work with modded crops?
Yes. Any crop that implements the IPlantable interface (which most modded crops do) will be automatically detected as a valid crop. The mod checks if a block is plantable and if it has reached its maximum age. Additionally, crops from HeftyCrops, Overweight Farming, and other supported mods have explicit tag entries. You can also add custom support via datapacks by adding block IDs to the appropriate smarterfarmers tags.
Will Farmers eat meat or special food items?
No. Villagers will only eat Common-rarity food items that aren't meat, Bowl Food, or Honey Bottles. This means they'll eat Bread, Carrots, Potatoes, Baked Potatoes, Apples, Cookies, and similar plant-based foods. They won't eat Steak, Porkchops, Rabbit Stew, Mushroom Stew, Golden Apples, or any rare/uncommon food items.
Does this mod work on servers?
Yes. The mod is server-side only for its core functionality (harvesting, replanting, eating, and farmland protection). The only client-side feature is the optional debug renderer, which only works in singleplayer. The mod uses a DisplayTest that allows clients without the mod to connect to servers running it.
Can I change how fast Farmers harvest?
Yes. The time_to_harvest config option (default: 40 ticks, or 2 seconds) controls how long a Farmer stands at a crop before harvesting it. You can set this anywhere from 1 to 1000 ticks. Lower values make farming faster, while higher values give a more realistic look as the Farmer appears to work the crop before breaking it.
Is this compatible with Quark's Simple Harvest?
Yes. The mod has built-in Quark integration. If Quark is installed and its Simple Harvest module is enabled with the Villagers option, Smarter Farmers will defer to Quark's harvest-and-replant system. This prevents both mods from trying to handle the same crop at the same time.
What is the debug renderer?
The debug renderer is a visual overlay (singleplayer only) that shows what each Farmer Villager is doing. It displays their current activity, whether they're actively farming, what seed they want to plant, their plant timer, and their inventory contents. Farmland blocks are color-coded: green for harvest, yellow for harvest-and-replant, and orange for planting. Enable it with the debug_renderer config option. It's mainly useful for modpack developers or troubleshooting.