The fastest way to start out in Minecraft is to build a number of farms to get the exp and resources needed for expansion. However, not all farms are easy to build - some require a number of resources that can't be found early on.

In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase the top 8 useful farms to build in Minecraft 2023.

1. Crop farms

Crop farming allows players to plant several vegetables and other crops on farmland, which then grow over time and can be harvested for food. Each crop requires a seed for planting, and after the first few, you eventually would have enough seeds to fill the whole plot of farmland. Wheat is the easiest to farm, as its seeds can be collected from destroying grass blocks. Beetroots, carrots and potatoes use the same mechanics.

Growing Wheat Farm
A growing wheat farm

A basic repeatable farm plot consists of a 9×9 square of farmland with the center square dug out and filled with a water source block. This gives 80 blocks of farmland which can be fenced with 40 pieces of fence including gates and is the most efficient arrangement for simple farms.

2. Steak and leather farm

Steak and leather farm is probably the best food farm in Minecraft. This is a multipurpose farm that provides the player with an inexhaustible source of cooked steak and leather. The overall design of this farm is fairly simple - you only need a bucket of lava, a bucket of water, some building blocks like cobblestone, a few signs, a couple of hoppers, some soul sand, some glass, and a chest. You also need some wheat to feed and lure the cows as well.

Steak farm
A completed farm

3. Enderman XP farm

Enderman is one of the more common mobs in the game - they spawn in all three dimensions. While players often create enderman farms in Warped forests, the End is definitely just as good, as every End island is filled with them.

These mobs drop a good amount of XP points and the useful Ender Pearl, which makes them worth farming. To create this farm, players can use several things like water, endermites, etc. The most important thing is that the trapping/killing room needs to be covered properly and has a two-block tall area to prevent the endermen from teleporting.

4. Sculk XP farm

Sculk farming is a method of farming XP and/or sculk growth blocks for decoration by using the sculk catalyst block. If a mob dies near a sculk catalyst, regardless of how it dies, the catalyst will always produce sculk blocks, which can then be mined for XP.

Minecraft Sculk Xp Farm

When killed in this way, the mob only drops items - their XP drops are stored inside sculk blocks. This mechanic can be used for bulk XP storage, allowing players to grain a large amount of XP at any time. This sculk XP mechanic can be combined with pretty much all farms that involve players killing mobs. To acquire the sculk catalyst block, players need to find and break it using a Silk Touch pickaxe.

5. Villager Cure Emerald farm

This method revolves around curing a zombified villager over and over again to get the maximum discount. The bonus max out at 5 cures, where the villagers would give you a great rate of emeralds in trade.

Cure A Zomie Villager
Cure A Zombie Villager to get discounts

Building the structure for turning villagers is fairly simple. Just box a zombie and a villager together and separate them with a lever-operated partition. Remove the partition for the zombie to attack the villager and turn it into a zombie villager then cure it with a potion of weakness and a golden apple. Repeat the process 5 times for each villager.

This is the easiest farm to set up, as it does not require players to build anything outside of the box with the zombie. Just brew potions, get apples and gather some villagers to begin the process.

6. Enderman farm

This farm uses the fall damage mechanic to reduce the Endermen to half a heart, just enough for one shot kill.

  • Firstly, build a platform in the End at least 128 blocks away from any spawnable block. This way, only Endermen can spawn there.
  • Build another platform for the endermen to tall onto, at least 43 blocks downward. After the fall they would take 19.5 hearts worth of damage, leaving them on half a heart.
  • Place some kind of mechanics that can push the endermen down from the spawning platform: pressure plates, sticky pistons with blocks attached, or a tripwire attached to normal pistons.
  • On the landing platform, create a 2-block high ceiling and lure the endermen to you by looking at them. This way, players should be able to easily kill them without getting touched.

As this farm uses the same manual mechanic as the previous piston farm, players also need a weapon with high level Looting enchantment for efficiency. It is possible to increase the spawning rate by building multiple spawning pads that lead to one spot.

enderman farm Minecraft
Fall damage is the easiest killing mechanic in enderman farm Minecraft.

It is possible to get to level 30 in minutes from the experience gained with this farm. Players can kill endermen with TNT and a Flame enchanted bow if they don't want to manually hit every single mob, however, that would yield less Ender Pearl.

7. Blazes farm

Blazes are floating hostile mobs found in nether fortresses, and are the only source of blaze rods. These rods are essential in brewing and can serve as fuel for both brewing and smelting. Furthermore, blaze powder (from rods) is the other ingredient to create the eye of ender that leads the player to the End.

Blazes
Blazes in Minecraft

It is actually pretty easy to farm blazes in Minecraft. Players can find blaze spawners inside nether fortresses. Using these spawners, players can create a blaze rod farm in Minecraft.

8. Shulker shells

Shulker shells are one of the most useful mob drops in the game, as it allows players to create shulker boxes. A single shulker box can store up to 30 stacks of items, making mining trips much more efficient.

Shulkers
Shulkers shells are the main component for shulker boxes.

It is the most important Minecraft resource to farm in the End, especially if you are a builder. With that, you can carry enough resources and create a whole base at any time. Players need to kill a shulker for its shells. The best way to do this is to use an Elytra, as you would be immune to their levitation attacks.