Stardew Valley: Rancher or Tiller – Which Profession Is Better?

In our previous guides, we’ve mostly focused on fishing professions and what are the best and most profitable choices. Now, it’s time to focus more on the core activity in Stardew Valley – farming. Farming like all other skills offers a choice as soon as you reach level 5 and level 10. The first choice you’re going to make is that between rancher and tiller. Having said that, let’s see, between rancher or tiller, which profession is better in Stardew Valley?

With the rancher profession, your animal products are worth more

The rancher profession is one of the two professions you get to choose between as soon as your farming skill reaches level 5. Rancher Profession offers a simple bonus, all animal products you sell from now on will be worth 20 % more. That means that all eggs, duck eggs, wool, milk, and truffles for example will be worth a lot more.

Choosing Rancher at level 5 offers a different set of opportunities at level 10, you will be able to choose between the coopmaster profession and the shepherd profession.
Even though in theory rancher profession sounds good, in practice it’s not as good, especially when compared to the tiller.

Animals are an essential part of farming in Stardew Valley and it’s inevitable to own at least a couple of animals, there’s a big “but” coming. But, most of your profit will not come from animals. Animals are a lot of work and every animal product you get even with a 20% bonus applied is nowhere near the potential money you will get if you choose the tiller profession.

However, if you decide to focus on animals mostly, even knowing that they won’t generate as much money, the tiller profession is useless to you. You should focus on orienting toward rancher and all rancher-associated professions.

Tiller profession makes your crops worth more

The Tiller profession is the second of two level 5 choices when it comes to farming skills in Stardew Valley. Tiller unlocks a bonus that makes your crops worth 10% more. The bonus is applied to all crops as well as flowers and fruits. The only catch is if vegetables, fruits, or flowers have foraged the bonus will not apply.
All in all, it’s a good deal as it increases your profits significantly during the early game, and later on, it unlocks better level 10 professions. Specifically, it unlocks the artisan profession that raises your profits massively in the late game.

Farming crops is not as engaging as taking care of animals, it’s more of a passive effort (at least when you fully automatize your farm). Taking up farming as your primary source of income leaves plenty of time for other activities that can also generate money. Even though, to enjoy the full extent of the level 10 artisan profession you will have to take care of animals since a lot of artisan goods stem from animal products.

If you decide to choose the agriculturalist profession at level 10, your crops will grow 10% faster. Agriculturalist is not as lucrative as an artisan but it still leads to more money than what Coopmaster and Shepher professions can provide. Even though the 10% bonus seems small early on, it eventually adds up and offers better money-making opportunities in the long run.

Rancher or tiller which profession is better?

Tiller is a better choice in the long run if you don’t plan on taking care of animals as your primary source of income. Compared to crops, animals are inefficient and overall you will earn less money. That doesn’t mean that you can just forget about animals, you will have to raise them however you look at it, especially if you plan on making artisan goods.

A lot of those involve animals. Tiller is the mainstream choice that will allow you to choose better opportunities later on. While profits will seem small at first, they will continue to snowball once you’re farm has grown and has undergone automatization.

To sum it up, pick rancher if you enjoy and plan to take care of animals, and pick tiller if you prefer money. If you believe you’ve made the wrong choice and you would like to change your profession, there’s always an option of gathering 10,000 gold coins and simply changing your profession. However, early on that kind of money might be hard to come across.

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