Started a new game. Things were going fine. I havae the orchard, and fishing. When I got my farmer to start fishing, the trees still had several hundred pieces of fruit on them. Now, whenever I leave the game, my farmer starts picking fruit instead of fishing and the fruit does not count as having been added to the bin. I have watched the farmer put fish in the bin and the count goes up but when she puts fruit in there is no change. Unless I am watching and pick up the farmer and put her in the water, she wants to pick fruit. The food level keeps dropping while I'm not watching. I only have 12 villagers so its not as if they are eating it all. Any suggestions? Has this happened to anybody else?

The food level drops because the villagers eat, even though there are only 12 villagers
Also, farmers may prefer to pick fruit than go fishing. I have no idea why the fruit isn't making a difference. Are you sure that you have gotten the sharks away so you can go fishing? If so, what version of VV3 are you currently running?

I have the latest version. Don't remember the number but I downloaded it as soon as Arthur posted it the first day the game came out. Haven't had this problem with the other 3 tribes I'm running. I realize the villagers eat........But the count never goes up just down when the farmer puts the fruit in the bin. It didn't happen for the first several hours of the game, just started suddenly. I left the game running with over 1000 in the bin and maybe 3 hrs. later I was down to about 600. The farmer is picking like crazy but it just isn't counted. Just to clear up what I said about which version I have, I downloaded and bought the game, and then downloaded the patch or fix or whatever that was causing problems with moving the statue.

As soon as your farmer picks the fruit, the food count goes up. Your farmer does not need to carry the fruit to the bin for it to be counted. S/he just has to pick it off the tree. Look carefully when the farmer picks the fruit and you'll see your food count go up immediately. The drop is from your villagers eating.

Also, just wanted to make sure you realized that there have been two new versions. First there was the .03 version and not there is the .04 version. Although, I doubt if that is going to make any different regarding the food, as I didn't have that problem even before I added the .04 version. But just wanted to let you know because the .04 version fixes other problems.

Check the Menu screen for the version number. It's at the bottom left. The latest version at the moment of posting is 1.00.04, but it's possible another later version could be released in the future.