Best Early Game Farms

Quick answer

• Build food first: a wheat or carrot farm plus a cow or chicken pen.
• Then sugar cane (paper for books), kelp (fuel) and a tree farm.
• Bigger farms like iron and XP come once you're settled.

Farms mean you stop running out of stuff. Here's the order most survival players build them in, and why.

Farm Output CalculatorCalculate Minecraft farm production, items per hour and required shulker boxes and chests→

1. Food farm

Till dirt next to water with a hoe and plant wheat seeds, carrots or potatoes. Water hydrates farmland up to 4 blocks away.

2. Animal pen

Lure two cows with wheat (or chickens with seeds) into a fenced pen and breed them. You get meat, leather for books, and feathers for arrows.

3. Sugar cane

Plant sugar cane on sand or dirt next to water. It grows on its own, and you need lots of paper for books, maps and rockets.

4. Kelp farm

Kelp grows underwater. Smelt it into dried kelp and craft dried kelp blocks: free, renewable furnace fuel.

Furnace & Fuel CalculatorCalculate Minecraft smelting fuel, time and leftovers using furnaces, smokers or blast furnaces→

5. Tree farm

Plant a row of saplings with space between them. You'll want a lot of wood for building, chests and tools.

After that

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Cheat sheet

• Food, then animals, then sugar cane
• Kelp for fuel, trees for wood
• Iron and XP farms once you're settled
• Work out storage before you build big

Farm Output CalculatorCalculate Minecraft farm production, items per hour and required shulker boxes and chests→