Be careful when harvesting... Your food is taken from the resource as soon as your person leaves the resource, unlike in previous games when it was deducted when the food was placed in the food bin... Just a warning!

thanks for the warning.. I hadn't noticed that yet! good tip!!

it also means that you can't put the whole village on the source and get a bunch more food. oh well. at least they can get to be master faster--if you keep putting them back on after they get the food.

i believe thats just for the trees

It's a reallllly good way of training up farmers Fast, and getting food when you need it without having them walk across the whole village first.

Then they can get back to researching

Yes, it only applies to the fruit trees and the fruit that comes from the lift.

I believe the food is also added to the bin the moment they leave the tree, as well; you can't 'lose' food if the villager doesn't make it.

This is more of a blessing than a curse, as you can manually speed up harvesting by bringing them back to harvest before they make it to the bin. I can't think of any real down sides. The honey works the opposite way - food is both deducted, and added to your bin, when they finish putting it in the bin.