Raiding valleys: Oh, look, a single scout headed for my valley. I think I'll reinforce it with 10 archers.

Think you're missing the point slightly on this - if you reinforce all your valleys, you can't farm NPCs because you don't have any slots left in RP.

So you either lose the buff to your resources or you lose the chance to farm - both affect food.

I have a life, work 12 hour shifts and have a young family. If I'm lucky, I get to farm twice a day to try and stem the -25million food per hour loss. So that's 180 NPC5 farming trips to send out - to add calling back all reinforcements, sending out farmers, waiting for their return, reinforce valleys again then repeat later in the day is sheer insanity and surely only for the hallowed realms of the bedridden and the crack addict.