So the gist of me and racerboy's farming idea. To start off, there's multiple crop types. Each have different values/grow times.
Basics
There should be a new lot type and new area of the city to accompany this lot. The new lot type is Agricultural. Agricultural lots have low tax rates but high costs to purchase initially. This lot would not allow any type of sale events but would allow request funds like normal.
Two new jobs would be introduced. Farmhand and Farmer. I had thought of simply giving laborer a sickle/hoe/whatever tool will be used for farming but i like the idea of a new job instead. Farmhand would follow the basic entry level job of 0exp-10exp and Farmer would have a 10exp-20exp limit. I'm thinking farmer should get a small paycheck($15?) just so taxes from agricultural lots come into play. Farmers would also get a gold farming tool.
Seeds.
I'm between brick-based crops and DRPG-esque crop system using a model and a growing collision box idk exactly how it's done. I like the idea of brick-based so you can't bunch them all up in one spot and you can't build over them. Seeds would cost a relatively high amount of money per seed, again, high initial startup for a farm. Seed price would possibly rise/fall depending on economy.
Crops
Each crop, when placed, has a certain amount of time until it reaches a fully grown state. When it reaches that state it generates a random amount of food in it based on certain limits. IE if corn could grow 6-10 ears of corn when it reaches a full state it would randomly choose a number from 6-10 for how many ears it has. Harvesting crops would work similarly to normal laboring with a small chance to harvest 1 crop every hit.
Crop types
base price would change based on economy, and is how much each crop unit would sell for by default
min/max prices is how much you could earn per harvest at normal economy
grow time is obvious, wouldn't change
$ per seed is how much it costs to plant the crop down OR if using drpg style how much the seed costs to buy. Seed cost could be economy based idk
POTATOES
4-8 potatoes per harvest
$1.00 base price
Grow time 45 seconds
$4 min $8 max
$15 per seed
ONIONS (because they'll often make you cry when you harvest them)
1-10 onions per harvest
$1.25 base price
Grow time 55 seconds
$1.25 min $12.50 max
$25 per seed
CARROTS
6-12 carrots per harvest
$1.60 base price
Grow time 70 seconds
$9.6 min $19.20 max
$40 per seed
TOMATOES
4-14 tomatoes per harvest
$2.05 base price
Grow time 90 seconds
$8.2 min $28.70 max
$60 per seed
CORN
6-10 corn per harvest
$4.00 base price
Grow time 150 seconds
$24 min $40 max
$100 per seed
Obviously you can see there is a relative order of progression. Higher valued crops take more time to grow and have a higher seed cost
I think the idea racerboy had was to make it so once you placed a crop it would just keep growing continuously and never run out like how current laboring stuff works, with the change of you can place your own crops.
By default there would be patches of potatoes in unowned land for your basic farming job to harvest like current laborer stuff. I'd say these potatoes should probably grow faster but it wouldn't hurt anything really if they didn't. The key to farming is getting enough money to buy your own crops later down the line for better profit.
Farming and the economy
The way farming food should work and effect the economy is as you sell your food to the city it should stockpile without a limit, or maybe cap it idk. Whenever a grocer-tier job sells food it will use the amount sold out of the stockpile. If the city's stockpile reaches 0 food in storage, shop's food prices would automatically double and continue to drain the stockpile into the negatives. Basically if people kept buying food it could possibly go into the -100s unless farmers sold food to the stockpile making it VERY essential to have farmers.
I may have missed some stuff but that's the general idea of how farming would work. It has obvious effects on the economy and would add another flavor to the crp. If I missed anything racerboy or there's something you want to add feel free.