That's too bad.

I don't like it when that happens (although it most often happens to me when I get busy and forget all about them until it's too late).

I think one of the reasons was that I accidentally left the game on fast over night, and instead of farming, everyone decided they needed another hut more than food (even though nobody was checked into building at the time), because it was all built by morning, and almost all the food eaten.
There was still a little on the bush, keeping them going for another 4 years of game time, but despite everyone on farm duty, nothing ever grew.

If you're monitoring the game closely enough, you can move all of the farmers to the research table while the farm is empty to help get the tech points necessary for the final level of farming technology. Then just put them back on the farm when there are crops to harvest.
Does this mean, once they've planted and watered a little, you can pull them off farming, until the crops actually show up?
The villagers' curiosity is there to alert you to various areas of the island that are important. They don't produce skill or tech points, so you're safe in just dragging them back to work (like most of us do)!

Ah, good to know!

Now, I need someone to actually drag *me* back to work!
