I have a population that is too large for my food supply. I have 35 villagers (17 of which are kids), algae in the ocean, no coconuts and am working on my way to the last farming tech. I am consistently running out of food between crops.

I've discovered two tips to help keep my villagers alive, that I thought others may appreciate:

1. When you are down to 10 crops in the fields, drag the entire population to harvest. As long as they are gathering when there are crops in the fields, they will deposit their food. To maximize, run the game on double-speed so that each villager gathers their full 10 food. With only 10 crops left, I am still able to add 180 food (18 villagers).

2. Spend the tech to gain the 2nd level exploration and find the pot. Then with every harvest make the Purple-Purple-Orange stew and drag all the villagers to eat. This restores them to complete health and should get them to survive between crops even if they don't eat anything else. In a pinch, the stew can be made with only mushrooms, but it takes 2 mushrooms to add the food to the stew, and will disappear shortly after the food disappears again. Teaching the children also helps to make sure you get all the kids, since they line up by age. Otherwise they just run around like crazy and are tough to gather up.