I was thinking about stuff like this last time I played, but with workers more than farmers. Basically instead of building one giant city, we could build communities that work with each other and have the citizens prioritize work in their zone first. Currently I have 36 hearthians and they spend so much time just wondering from one place to another because the town is so widespread, and I don’t have but around 1/4 of the map used if even that. Then when it’s food time they all take the super long run back to the same place. I thought about setting up multiple kitchens but then you have the food in 1 place, so the 2nd cook would have a long haul.
Reminds me of [quote=“Teleros, post:1, topic:7972”]
5. New Zone: Ownership ZonesWhen you drag this down, you have five options: Unclaimed, Pick Hearthling, and Public Use, Barracks, and Great Hall. The first means that the first hearthling to claim the zone will own it, with the game AI determining who that ends up being. The second means you must select a hearthling from a drop-down menu (must show professions!) to own the zone and everything inside it - beds & chairs can only be used by the owner, etc. Add a check-box to permit the chosen hearthling’s family to use the zone too, if that’s ever a thing in the game. The Public Use option means that everything in the zone remains unclaimed, including things like beds etc - it’s always a “first come first served” area. The Barracks will be reserved exclusively for military hearthlings, who can claim beds etc in it, and the Great Hall becomes the preferred meeting & partying place for all your hearthlings. These options should also be given to buildings, but that’s for another topic 
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Taken from this post from 2014. I like several of the ideas in it.
Also on a side note, just because a hearthling owns a bed, doesn’t mean he won’t use another. I have all my military personnel a bed near the entrance to my town, they still run all the way across town to an unclaimed bed.