Non-meat corckpot recipes should apply buffs simmilar to the ones applied by Warly's dishes. Obviously they'd be a lot weaker, but hey- increased damage or armor even if by small ammount is still better than nothing.
In theory this should encourage players to start using farms. Now how to make that process less tedious:
If special conditions are met improved farms would output more crops. For example 1 farm could yield max 3 dragonfruits.
These conditions wouldn't affect the speed of farm, only its output
-players would be now able to use bucket'o'poop in 2 ways: if dragged over a crop it'll fertelize it but if dragged over I.F. it'd upgrade it (simmilar to masts). Upgraded I.F. would have that bucket now as part of its model. Player would have to refil the bucket with poop from time to time
-nearby insects such as bees, butterflies or maybe a new insect. These would... well, polinate the farms
-structure that'd collect rain and later moisturize the ground
-strawhat placed on the scarecrow