WHEAT

Wheat is the one crop the Farmer both buys from you and sells back to you in a different shape. Hand it over raw and he pays for it on this row; bake it down and he also sells the loaf on a separate one, so a wheat field can either turn straight into emeralds or take a detour through the oven first.

It is also the only one of his crops built to be stored in bulk without a chest. 9 wheat compresses into 1 hay bale, a block that unpacks straight back into the loose crop later, so a harvest that would otherwise overflow every container you own fits neatly onto a shelf instead.

3 wheat also crafts into 1 bread, which means the same field feeds two different trades and a hungry player, all from one planted row.

A Farmer at Novice pays 1 emerald for 20 wheat, a rate written into the trade file rather than open to negotiation, so it holds from one farmer to the next.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 20 wheat, from the Farmer, and 3 of the other 5 pay out faster. No villager sells wheat back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Farmer takes 20 wheat a trade, 16 trades, 16 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

16 acacia boats against 416 potatoes for the same 16 emeralds, 26 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Butcher at 10 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Wheat itself pays 20 an emerald, so 57 of the 72 ask less and 12 ask more.

This row opens at Novice, the tier a villager already holds the instant it claims a composter, before any trade history exists. Wheat can be one of the first things a brand new farmer offers to buy.

It survives 16 sales before locking, and a restock puts back the identical terms rather than something new. Selling faster than the villager can absorb it just leaves the surplus waiting for the next restock to open the row again.

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

Working the trade the whole day turns 640 wheat into 32 emeralds from a single farmer, whether that wheat came straight off a field or out of an unpacked hay bale.

A full run through the row moves 320 wheat for 16 emeralds, so it is worth bringing the whole harvest in at once rather than several smaller trips.

Before selling it all raw, check the math: the same Farmer sells bread for 0.16666666666666666 emeralds at 6 at a time, so baking part of the harvest and buying it back can beat selling wheat outright depending on how the two rows line up.

Also on the Farmer's list: bread, carrot, potato and beetroot, the rest of what one composter can put on offer.

A wheat field is the first farm most players build and the one the Farmer pays for directly. It also feeds cows, sheep and villagers themselves, and a villager with bread in hand is what makes a village grow, so the same crop drives both the economy and the population.

Three wheat make bread and nine make a hay bale, which packs the harvest into a ninth of the space and unpacks again without loss. Hay also feeds horses, so a stable next to a wheat field runs itself.

Nine wheat press into a hay bale and come back out again, which makes bales the only sensible way to store a serious harvest. They also break a fall, which is why they sit at the bottom of so many shafts.

Horses eat a bale as a full meal, and it is the fastest way to heal or grow one, so a stable keeps them for reasons that have nothing to do with storage.

Bread is three wheat in a row, and villagers pick bread up and share it, so wheat is also the currency a village breeds on.

320 Wheat is what one Farmer absorbs before he needs a restock, at 20 Wheat per emerald. The same field feeds your cows and sheep, because Wheat is what both breed on, so a harvest rarely goes to waste: How to Build a Wheat Farm in Minecraft.