How to fix food and drink production?

[Draco4472]

My current fort is approaching 10 years old and I'm running into issues with food production. When I had a population of around 80 I seemed to easily be able to stockpile 1k in food and drink, but now that it's reached ~190 dwarves I'm struggling to keep above 100-200 in both, regardless of more kitchens and stills, even after assigning and locking more dwarves into the relevant jobs.

Is there a certain number of farm plots I should have that would allow me to produce more? Or an optimized amount of planters and cooks I'm somehow not reaching? Or some work order to keep on top of the demand? As far as I can tell I'm not wanting for plump helmet seeds, it just seems like I can't grow and cook quickly enough compared to what I was able to several hours prior on the save.

[Haethei]

a 5x5 farm plot of plump helmets will be enough for ~250 dwarves if it's being fully used (and if the math hasn't changed since 47.05)

setting your entire surface to plant gathering/fruit picking zone is really efficient for food too, my fort has 20 dwarves and about 2000 plants in stockpile, most of which are above ground herbalism plants, just not safe if there's dangerous animals up there. some of those plants will need to be milled/baked first though

[AlP]

What is the skill level of your planters and brewers?

You need to limit planting to a few high-skill planters to get bigger stacks of plants. If you let everyone plant, the stacks will be very small.

You also need to have a high level brewer and cook to produce drinks and meals faster.

[TechReaper]

It can absolutely be done using the above suggestions. I have 3 kitchens and more farm plots but all the cooks, brewers and planters are highly skilled. I have about 15k in prepped food. I even stopped producing easy meals, only going for higher and highest quality. Still I have completely broken my stocks menu and the trade system with all the barrels of prepared food.

Edit: 197 Dorfs

[TechReaper]

Check you have plenty barrels, take notice of the cancelled action reasons. I had a breakdown drink and food crisis because of storage once.

[Other]

Originally posted by Haethei:

a 5x5 farm plot of plump helmets will be enough for ~250 dwarves if it's being fully used (and if the math hasn't changed since 47.05)

This has changed in one respect - farming underground plants like plump helmets just under the surface (anywhere that isn't a cavern layer) has had production cut by about 75%. Even a legendary planter routinely gets stacks of 1 or 2 from those plots. You can get around that with more farm tiles, but the efficiency of brewing and cooking is also reduced, so you need more (or faster) cooks, brewers, workshops, pots and stockpile space.

This is a change that I think was made to move food production from "completely trivial" to "you need to pay a little attention". Surface farming and cavern farming are unaffected, but both of those have the additional requirement that you need to spend some effort securing the area.

[Haethei]

Originally posted by Other:

Originally posted by Haethei:

a 5x5 farm plot of plump helmets will be enough for ~250 dwarves if it's being fully used (and if the math hasn't changed since 47.05)

This has changed in one respect - farming underground plants like plump helmets just under the surface (anywhere that isn't a cavern layer) has had production cut by about 75%. Even a legendary planter routinely gets stacks of 1 or 2 from those plots. You can get around that with more farm tiles, but the efficiency of brewing and cooking is also reduced, so you need more (or faster) cooks, brewers, workshops, pots and stockpile space.

This is a change that I think was made to move food production from "completely trivial" to "you need to pay a little attention". Surface farming and cavern farming are unaffected, but both of those have the additional requirement that you need to spend some effort securing the area.

Getting enough room for a 5x5 plot in the cavern should be pretty easy at least, but it would introduce annoying hauling trips from the cavern to your kitchens and/or dining hall lol

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Originally posted by AlP:

What is the skill level of your planters and brewers?

You need to limit planting to a few high-skill planters to get bigger stacks of plants. If you let everyone plant, the stacks will be very small.

You also need to have a high level brewer and cook to produce drinks and meals faster.

Only until skill levels increase. Remember that training farms/gathering zones are a thing. Ten years in, there should be a highly skilled core of planters/gatherers - with many more of moderate skill - if you are taking advantage of proper training methods. Not specializing your plant-based farmers required a different mindset and a longer view than seeking a tiny corps of legendary farmers in year 2.

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by Draco4472:

My current fort is approaching 10 years old and I'm running into issues with food production. ...
...
Is there a certain number of farm plots I should have that would allow me to produce more? Or an optimized amount of planters and cooks I'm somehow not reaching? Or some work order to keep on top of the demand? As far as I can tell I'm not wanting for plump helmet seeds, it just seems like I can't grow and cook quickly enough compared to what I was able to several hours prior on the save.

Are your farms in the cavern zone?
How many farmers do you have tending your crops?
How many of your farmers are actually good at farming?
Do you also grow surface crops?
Are you stripping the surface of all the food you can?
Do you raise livestock? Fish? Hunt?
And lastly, is your food production and storage set up efficiently.

Here's a link for the DwarfFortressWiki farm size calculations page https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Farm_size_calculations

good luck

[Draco4472]

Originally posted by Diarmuhnd:

Originally posted by Draco4472:

My current fort is approaching 10 years old and I'm running into issues with food production. ...
...
Is there a certain number of farm plots I should have that would allow me to produce more? Or an optimized amount of planters and cooks I'm somehow not reaching? Or some work order to keep on top of the demand? As far as I can tell I'm not wanting for plump helmet seeds, it just seems like I can't grow and cook quickly enough compared to what I was able to several hours prior on the save.

Are your farms in the cavern zone?
How many farmers do you have tending your crops?
How many of your farmers are actually good at farming?
Do you also grow surface crops?
Are you stripping the surface of all the food you can?
Do you raise livestock? Fish? Hunt?
And lastly, is your food production and storage set up efficiently.

Here's a link for the DwarfFortressWiki farm size calculations page https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Farm_size_calculations

good luck

All my farms are in a cavern layer, z -4, with my sole food production one being 6x4, and a secondary one that's 4x4 that alternates between plump helmets and dimple cups. No surface crops, and little surface harvesting if only because my dwarves keep being eaten by birds and the distance between the surface and my stockpiles/kitchens being about 30 z-levels. There doesn't seem to be anything to hunt above when not dealing with the dwarf-eating giant birds, and I don't want to breach into the caverns surrounding where I fortified my farms to look for things to kill and eat due to a forgotten beast or two I've been ignoring.

As for planters, I have 4; skilled, expert, grand master, and legendary respectively. 5 Brewers that follow basically the same trend, 6 cooks between adequate and adept.

Livestock I've been using for milk/cheese and sheering mostly, with some turkeys I'm moving to a lower z-level and closer to where my production is since I found out they don't need to graze. Would probably be best to move everything below to fungal caverns but I don't trust my very ragtag military to deal with the forgotten beasts wandering around outside my farms.

Seems like I just need my food related dwarves more specialized and skilled than they are at present based on the advice so far, and try to keep at least a squad of archers aboveground for defending gatherers.

[captainamaziiing]

I have a clay and sand layer, I just carved out huge sections and waited for the fungus to grow on them. Made part of it a grazing area, so my livestock are safely underground, and the other 3/4 is zoned for regular picking. Also safely underground. Carve them 2 z-layers deep and the tree/mushrooms will grow too. Thing is, my dogs need culling so often I really don't even butcher my livestock. Shear 'em and milk 'em for cheese. Glorious CHEESE!

I have zero farm plots, I did not enjoy the micromanagement required to keep rotating crops as seeds ran out. I buy some nuts and berries from those vegan elves that keep buying my copper doodads. I have something like 6000 food barreled up, I can't eat it fast enough. Nothing but posh meals for my Dorfs.

[Askren]

There's a few issues you may need to check: First, make sure you have cooking turned OFF for your seeds. You need seeds to plant, and if your seeds are being used in meals, they can't be planted. As long as you're on a stone-floor underground layer and it is covered with mud so you can make your farm, you should be producing enough plump helmets to constantly turn into drinks. Brewing a drink from a plump helmet at a still will return seeds to re-plant. If you really need, you can supplement with mead production from hives (make hives, then make clay jugs to gather from them, which will collect honey to make mead and royal jelly to make into food).

If you're REALLY down bad for meat and you have no ready source of fish on your map from a stream or river, I would suggest trying to hold on until your next caravan and requesting Pigs and Chickens under the Pets section (Hen/Rooster, and Sow/Boar respectively. You can also get other animals too, but these are a good place to start). Both pigs and chickens don't need to live on the surface, you can just carve out a room underground and lock them down there and let them breed. Pigs need nothing, chickens need a Nest box (made from a Crafts workshop), and then either you can collect the eggs for food or you can lock them away and let them hatch for tons more chickens. Both can be butchered for meat and will reproduce constantly.

Other than that, if you can't hunt, try placing some cage traps around in strategic areas, the closer to the map edge the better. You may snag some animals.

[AlP]

Originally posted by captainamaziiing:

I have zero farm plots, I did not enjoy the micromanagement required to keep rotating crops as seeds ran out.

You can simply create a separate farm plot for each crop. I have a bunch of 2x2 plots for surface plants that are named after the crop that is assigned to them:

https://i.imgur.com/6dO8hb3.png

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by Draco4472:

Originally posted by Diarmuhnd:

Are your farms in the cavern zone?
How many farmers do you have tending your crops?
How many of your farmers are actually good at farming?
Do you also grow surface crops?
Are you stripping the surface of all the food you can?
Do you raise livestock? Fish? Hunt?
And lastly, is your food production and storage set up efficiently.

Here's a link for the DwarfFortressWiki farm size calculations page https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Farm_size_calculations

good luck

All my farms are in a cavern layer, z -4, with my sole food production one being 6x4, and a secondary one that's 4x4 that alternates between plump helmets and dimple cups. No surface crops, and little surface harvesting if only because my dwarves keep being eaten by birds and the distance between the surface and my stockpiles/kitchens being about 30 z-levels. There doesn't seem to be anything to hunt above when not dealing with the dwarf-eating giant birds, and I don't want to breach into the caverns surrounding where I fortified my farms to look for things to kill and eat due to a forgotten beast or two I've been ignoring.

As for planters, I have 4; skilled, expert, grand master, and legendary respectively. 5 Brewers that follow basically the same trend, 6 cooks between adequate and adept.

Livestock I've been using for milk/cheese and sheering mostly, with some turkeys I'm moving to a lower z-level and closer to where my production is since I found out they don't need to graze. Would probably be best to move everything below to fungal caverns but I don't trust my very ragtag military to deal with the forgotten beasts wandering around outside my farms.

Seems like I just need my food related dwarves more specialized and skilled than they are at present based on the advice so far, and try to keep at least a squad of archers aboveground for defending gatherers.

Understood. When I don't have access to lots of extra Meal ingredients from surface wild herb gathering, tree picking and surface crops I increase my farms below ground.
It does sound like you have a good base of farmers, but for 200 I aim at having at least 8 skilled farmers by that time, most times i have 10 good farmers.

I don't plant multiple crops in any of my farm plots. I find rotating crops a bad idea since unharvested plants cut into next seasons grow time for different crop types.

I think you just don't have enough food crops growing for a pop of 200.

More farms for each dwarf crop type, I do at least 3, 5x2 farms for each one. And a little more for plump helmets since dwarves eat those raw leaving the seeds behind.

Also, whenever we have excess alcohol I allow my chefs to use that extra booze for meals for a short while.

And it also looks like you need more meat products every year to have enough ingredients to make those lavish meals. Don't forget, henever you don't have enough ingredients for Lavish switch to making only Fine meals.

One thing I tried in my last fortress was bringing sunlight deep underground, it was a lot of work but it kind of worked. We were able to collect surface herbs at down at -11, but it wasn't a very large area.

good luck

[Draco4472]

Originally posted by Askren:

There's a few issues you may need to check: First, make sure you have cooking turned OFF for your seeds. You need seeds to plant, and if your seeds are being used in meals, they can't be planted. As long as you're on a stone-floor underground layer and it is covered with mud so you can make your farm, you should be producing enough plump helmets to constantly turn into drinks. Brewing a drink from a plump helmet at a still will return seeds to re-plant. If you really need, you can supplement with mead production from hives (make hives, then make clay jugs to gather from them, which will collect honey to make mead and royal jelly to make into food).

If you're REALLY down bad for meat and you have no ready source of fish on your map from a stream or river, I would suggest trying to hold on until your next caravan and requesting Pigs and Chickens under the Pets section (Hen/Rooster, and Sow/Boar respectively. You can also get other animals too, but these are a good place to start). Both pigs and chickens don't need to live on the surface, you can just carve out a room underground and lock them down there and let them breed. Pigs need nothing, chickens need a Nest box (made from a Crafts workshop), and then either you can collect the eggs for food or you can lock them away and let them hatch for tons more chickens. Both can be butchered for meat and will reproduce constantly.

Other than that, if you can't hunt, try placing some cage traps around in strategic areas, the closer to the map edge the better. You may snag some animals.

Cooking has been turned off for seeds that aren't surface crops since I first embarked. I'm not wanting for seeds otherwise, as far as I can tell I have lots in storage, in farm plots, and laying around on the floor in dining halls/taverns sometimes.

I'll attempt to make hives to see if that'll help, so far restructuring labour orders to force lots of peasants into exclusively gathering has helped a little and I guess that should improve with their herbalism skill over time. Cages don't seem too likely to help, especially with how constantly I have to deal with groups of agitated giant birds and occasionally lose dwarves gathering or chopping trees on the surface already to them. I haven't seen anything other than those and mundane crows appear on the surface for 4 ingame years anyhow.

There is a single thin brook that goes through the map that doesn't seem to help much. Two Fisherdwarves seems enough to get what little fish end up spawning in it before I get messages saying 'there is nothing to catch' but I've never seen above 60 raw/processed fish in my stocks.

My best guess is that my cooks just aren't skilled enough to manufacture what I need them to quickly or I just need a lot more small farm plots like Diarmuhnd suggested.

No dwarves have starved to death *yet* but seeing how I'm barely managing to stay between 100-200 food and drink even with now ~30 dedicated herbalists is concerning.