Well it's gratifying that other people are stuck there... but I still don't see how to get past it.

The first time I played I was fanatical about collecting items, and that's the time I managed to research the second level of all the techs. I built all I could, I looked at spoilers and solved all the puzzles I could... My population grew to about 20, and things seemed to be going great. Sure, they'd have to wait 10 minutes or so without food before the next crop came in... but that time increased. Then they waited 20 minutes without food, then 40, then two hours... it just seemed insurmountable.

Then I decided maybe my population was too large, so when I played again I limited them to 10 people. Still no luck - in fact, I entered the "death spiral" even earlier than before. I only managed Tech 2 in Farming and Science, but it was all downhill from there...

I just honestly don't see what I could do differently. I'm sick of spending hours of my own real time scouring the map for more collectibles or mushrooms, and even that didn't help. I'm really at a loss.