I'm just using Flauwy's calculator, I dropped the post in Discord - to work out clearing days versus TCs.
I think 'cos TCs are a fixed cost and may come in handy later, it's better to wait to develop those occupied and magic plots - do them slow and pay in grain, I mean what's grain gonna be worth a month after the market opens... maybe 20-30% of the notional fee now?
Grain is going to shoot down. When all these other 'commodities' start appearing, peeps will want them, and convert the grain farms to other 'farms'. Then it may rise again. Producing food might be boring but likely wont add to spell components.
I guess a limiting factor is how expensive it is to feed workers - I mean 50% of the supply has to go back in! At Base PP level at least, it's why I spunked 1/4M DEC on totems, it's the only thing you can easily buy that improves that ratio.... forever! (Forever, for now!).