Maria, welcome to our crazy world, the game is great.

Now about your food supply, I would put another as a farmer to help keep the food supply up. There are many ways to play the game and we all do it differently; but, I would buy an upgrade to farming as soon as possible. Your villagers could then harvest rather then depending on berries all the time.

At the research table, watch your people, when they do a little leg kick, they already earned the tech points. Give them a nudge so that they start the process of gaining points again. It's a little faster; you might get the second level of farming faster.