CARROT

Carrot is unusual among the Farmer's crops because a field is not the only source worth building. Husks, zombie villagers, zombies can drop it too, so a mob farm running alongside a normal plot doubles as a second carrot pipeline without a single seed planted.

Whichever route fills the chest, the Farmer is where the surplus turns into emeralds. A working farmer at Novice takes it at a fixed rate, no haggling and no waiting for a better offer to roll around, so a big harvest never has to sit idle waiting for a buyer.

Off the trading window, a carrot on a stick still steers a saddled pig, and a golden carrot needs a raw one at its core, so this crop earns its keep well beyond the composter.

A Farmer at Novice pays 1 emerald for 22 carrots, a rate set in the trade file rather than negotiated, so it holds steady from one farmer to the next.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 22 carrots, from the Farmer, and 4 of the other 5 pay out faster. No villager sells carrot back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Farmer takes 22 carrots a trade, 16 trades, 16 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

16 acacia boats against 480 flint for the same 16 emeralds, 30 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Butcher at 10 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Carrot itself pays 22 an emerald, so 60 of the 72 ask less and 10 ask more.

This offer belongs to Novice, the opening rung a villager claims the moment it settles at a composter with no job history behind it. Carrot can be one of the very first things a fresh farmer is willing to buy, right alongside the other starting crops.

The row survives 16 sales before it locks, then a restock brings back the same terms rather than something new. Handing over more carrots than the villager can take in one sitting just means the extra waits in your inventory for the next window.

16 sales close the slot, and it needs 2 real minutes idle before it opens again, a wait that can land up to twice inside the 20-minute villager day.

Working the trade for the full stretch turns 704 carrots into 32 emeralds from a single farmer, whether that harvest came from a field or a mob farm running in the background.

One full pass through the slot moves 352 carrots for 16 emeralds, so it pays to bring the whole harvest at once rather than trickling it in over separate trips.

Keep a portion back before selling it all: 8 gold nuggets and 1 carrot craft into a golden carrot, and the same Farmer sells the finished golden carrot on a separate row, worth checking against crafting it yourself.

Also on the Farmer's list: potato, wheat, beetroot and golden carrot, the rest of what one composter can put on offer. He sells finished food back across the same tiers, from pumpkin pie to cookie, so the carrots you hand over pay for the rows further up his list.

Eaten plain, a carrot is unremarkable. Wrapped in eight gold nuggets it becomes a golden carrot, which restores more hunger than almost anything in the game and, more importantly, saturates: eat one and you stay full through a long trip rather than a short one.

The same carrot is also the base of night vision. A golden carrot in a brewing stand is the potion that makes caves and the ocean floor readable, and there is no second recipe for it.

On top of that, carrots breed pigs and rabbits, and a carrot on a stick steers a saddled pig. For a crop that starts as a rare drop from a zombie, it turns up in a surprising number of places.

A Carrot is its own seed. Every Carrot you pull can go straight back into the soil, so a Carrot farm never needs a separate seed stock. The Farmer wants 22 Carrots per emerald, 352 for a full restock, and How to Build a Carrot and Potato Farm in Minecraft covers the build.