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[AngleWyrm]

A single 5x5 plot of plump helmets feeds about a hundred dwarves.
It takes 2~3 growers to keep the field planted and picked.

[NecroRebel]

Generally, each dwarf eats twice per season, and drinks four times per season.

A legendary farmer almost always produces ~4 plump helmets per farm tile (as in, 1 1x1 farm plot) per harvest.

You can typically have about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 plump helmet harvests per season. This works out to ~10-12 plump helmets per farm tile per season.

So, you could support one dwarf for every tile of farm plot that you have, with some excess. A single maximum-sized 10x10 farm plot could feed and booze about 110 dwarves. The only problem is that this can take some careful management to make sure that your brewer doesn't brew too many mushrooms into booze, causing your people to starve.

Of course, you could also arrange for ALL of your plump helmets to be brewed, and then some of your booze cooked into meals. This would essentially make each dwarf take up 6 dwarven wine per season (2 eaten as meals, 4 drank). Your production with a legendary farmer, then, would be ~50-60 combined food and drink per farm plot tile per season, essentially meaning that every tile could support ~8-10 dwarves. A 10x10 farm plot would then feed 800-1000 dwarves. This, again, takes more micromanagement, however, to make sure your cook doesn't cook all of your booze.

Generally, though, I find that I have more than enough food from 49 farm tiles (as in, 1 7x7 farm plot, though usually divided into several smaller ones) that are left fallow most of the year. Food production is very simply in DF because farming is almost unreasonably productive.

[FleshForge]

If the metal type that a bin is made of has any practical effect on hauling, I can't see it.  Lead bins look like they're hauled just as fast as featherwood bins.

Food is really the easiest problem to solve in the game, between fishing and hunting and farming and herbalism and trading.  Farming is completely unnecessary, you have so many other options, although it's nice to make dye or textile fibre or whatever.

[Musashi]

Ah well, I still like farming because it is a very safe way to get the kind of plants you need to brew precious, precious alcohol. It is slightly more risky to gather plants in the caverns or on the surface depending of your biome, your luck, and whether there is a siege/ambush or not. Plus, well, the kids can participate.

[NewSheoth]

Maaan, are you a farmer god or something? I would've spent weeks figuring that out! Thanks again!

Not really - I've never really (nor do I intend to) sat down and figured out how many tiles of farm plot are required to produce food for X dwarves, given Y growers at Z skill, with W walking distance, and P stockpile space available. The truth is, you really don't need to. The answer to how much food and drink a given dwarf needs is 2 meals and four drinks per season, according to the wiki, and I've never gone wrong by making sure I have more than that amount - provided that you check to make sure you're not running dry as your population expands.

My first few forts were full of starving, booze-less dwarves who wrestled goblin ambushes with teeth and beards, and seized caravans to get at their booze stockpiles. They were trainwrecks, and when I scrapped them, I knew what I was doing wrong and how to fix it. My forts now deal with foodsplosions, not hunger-induced tantrum spirals. The former are much easier to deal with than the latter!

If you have questions, ask. If you want advice, ask. If you want to learn at your own pace, I strongly recommend the wiki. (I always keep it running in another window, so I can pull up answers as I play.) In any case, you'll either learn what you need to keep a fortress running, or you'll quit playing.

Oh no, quit playing I guess I won't. Corrected it from 'I won't' because of my tendency to fail to follow my words if I deal in absolutes. Guess I'm no Sith.
My dwarves are also surprisingly tolerant. They are all content/happy/ecstatic, while all they have is a well and a ton of plump helmets and fish. My fishermen make my food stockpiles overflow in under a season, and I don't know just where do they find so many fish. I'm just not paying attention to farming as long as my dwarves are fed and happy. I prefer stupid dwarf tricks.

[Nameless Archon]

I'm just not paying attention to farming as long as my dwarves are fed and happy. I prefer stupid dwarf tricks.

If your dwarves are fed and happy, you don't HAVE to pay attention to farming!

My farms are something I set up in the first season, as excavation in a soil layer is easy and fast. Once the farms shut down, I clear out every plant barrel (frees barrels for meals/syrup/flour/booze) and I'm set for a loooong time. As population rises, I just shift dwarves back into maximizing my stocks again. Trying to micromanage the exact number of tiles I need is just too much of a pain, and runs the risk that I lose the one (or two) dwarves responsible for my farming and then have to try and struggle out with lesser growers. I'd rather have four or five growers, with slower advancement, but where losing one or two doesn't run the risk of starving or drying out my fortress!

[FleshForge]

Stupid Dwarf Trick I'm trying just now:  Make a couple hundred crossbows, quivers and backpacks, and a few thousand ammo, and enable hunting for everyone, with the caverns all opened up.

[Urist McTaverish]

1x Sun berry+1x legendary grower=All the sunshine you'll ever need.

[FleshForge]

Well, unless somebody cooks it before you get the seed out

[Urist McTaverish]

Well, unless somebody cooks it before you get the seed out

That's why (f)orbid is your friend.

[FleshForge]

Sure, but then how do you get the seed out
(just don't cook meals until you get the seed out)
edit (or force your kitchen to not cook sun berries)

[Drakeero]

I would recommend doing at least one fort dedicated to nothing but inducing a foodsplosion for the purpose of operating a massive brewery.  I had a map with like 4 soil levels, no aquifers.  I purposely didn't touch the rock.  Large embark, nothing but a tower of underground farms, breweries, and a few carpenter workshops to cough out barrels.  Then came the massive labryinthine complex of store rooms for nothing but booze.  I figure if a !!FIRE!! ever started out it would have looked like an underground nuclear detonation test.

[FuzzyZergling]

I, personally, use 18 tiles of quarry bush, 18 tiles of plump helmets, 18 tiles of pig tail, and 18 tiles of either dimple cups or cave wheat.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

Usually you need one tile per dwarf at least, but it depends. Especially on other food sources and how much you're brewing. If you have a fair amount of meat and/or other plants that your herbalists are getting, you're probably ok with 1 tile ish per dwarf, but if you're paranoid you can have a slightly higher ratio of more plots.

[Reese]

I've never had a problem supporting 20-30 dwarfs on one 5x5 plot of plump helmets (granted, I tend to buy a few barrels of booze and a few stacks of cheese and fish from caravans to introduce some variety...)

Remember more experienced planters cause larger stacks to be grown from each seed planted. (unskilled planters may produce stacks of zero!)