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[eerr]

In the past, I know making farming more difficult was considered.
it was tried at least once by the toady one.

The conclusion df players came to, was that farming requiring more dwarves just meant using more farmers.

it pulled dwarves away from more interesting tasks, as well as more important tasks

it's not really a challenge to make more dwarves into farmers.
it's also not really that meaningful to the player.

aka instead of being some sort of difficult challenge, people just needed more dwarves to do the same amount of productivity.
dwarves are cheap!
raising the amount of dwarf power required for farming isn't mechanically interesting.

The net effect is having less dwarves to do things people actually find interesting.

[delphonso]

I agree, with this, though I also think farming is 'too easy' as it currently stands.

 Once people stop cooking plump helmets, it's easy to keep a fortress fed on just a few squares of farms. That is bare survival, and just like using draw bridges, that's not really a bad thing.

If you want every dwarf to be satisified with your culinary creations, that takes work and effort which are very satisfying. That, to me, is much more interesting than other 'solutions' to the food situation. Adding more steps or making crops less productive isn't a ton of fun.

Perhaps the new UI updates will make it easier to figure out what crops the dwarves would like, and that'd be something you could do for them.

[SixOfSpades]

IIRC, a lot of improvements will be implemented in the Food arc, and cropland/workers necessary for fortress production will almost certainly be among them. Personally, I'd like to see the various foods have different effects in regards to nutrition and overall mood. For example, let's say plump helmets remain largely as they are: Easily and ridiculously productive. A "field" no larger than a wagon, and worked by a single dwarf just a couple of times a season, can perpetually sustain dozens of dwarves. It's good that dwarves getting sick of a monotonous diet is already implemented, but suppose Toady went the extra mile & made plump helmets very low in essential vitamins & minerals--they're good for supplying basic caloric intake, but little else. So they're great for starting out--just dig out a tiny patch of mud & you're good to go--but as your fort develops, and your dwarves start to get sluggish from the lack of iron, niacin, & electrolytes, you're going to need to provide some vast fields for things like cave wheat & pig tails, which require the intensive labor of dozens of workers. But since the majority of this work (planting, harvesting, & processing) is temporary, only a few dwarves will be true Farmers, remaining in the field all year, clearing away weeds, blight, & pests. The main body of workers will primarily have other trades, migrating to the fields for only a month or so each season.