Magic to aid farming in space

Someone claimed that it would take 40,000 farmers to feed a city of 10,000.
I would dispute that.

First, the division between farmers and craftsmen isn't always that strict.
Farmers produce a lot of crafts, clothing, wood products etc...  It
may take 40,000 involved in some form of agriculture to supply a city
of 10,000 craftspeople, but that includes _everything_ that comes out
of the ground.

And second, it assumes that there is no magic being used on an
industrial scale,
and that farm practices are medieval instead of Renaissance, like the rest of
Spelljammer's technology.

Consider skeletons working the harvest.  Cheap labor, relatively
simple job, untiring,
and best of all, you don't need to feed them.

Various crop affecting spells will reduce the amount of time to get a
harvest, others
can insure against insects to ensure the harvest is successful.
Another thing to
consider is that agricultural asteroids might have very few natural
pests.  And if
they are smart, they will be very restrictive of ships landing for that reason.

And while I do _not_ want to be around Gnome-built harvester equipment, various
simple aids to harvesting and plowing should be available,
considering the amount
of steel that is available.

Grain farming allows a _lot_ of food to be grown in a small area.  It allowed
farming regions to support large populations that displaced nomadic herding
cultures.  But those nomadic herding cultures could afford a much higher
warrior/population ratio because they needed fewer food suppliers.

If there are a lot of food supplying asteroids available, with a lot of surface
area, herding may be more successful because it requires less manpower
and fewer structures to have to defend.

Michael Sandy