Why not a icon for farming. Basically you use the icon to turn on and off farming mode. When in farming mode, you click on a tile and drag your mouse to create a box on the number of tiles you want to farm. When you have desired number of tiles, a little message box pop up and let you know how long it going to take. You click yes to continue or no if you do not want to continue. Depending on what you have in inventory may effect time it takes. Hoe, watering can, etc as examples. I imagine after a few days, a small area would only take a hour or 2 maintain. When the harvest is finally ready you enter farming mode and collect. I do not know if this idea would work but it may reduce or make easier for game designers to implement. Of course I'm personally in favor of removing farming and possibly fishing-trapping. But I try offer support ideas if it stays.