Basically you gotta make some money to buy it. So I'm playing right now. My decent early game hunters collect 15 to 20 food and 1 supply - a lousy one gets 8 to 10 and a supply. Food now costs 2 gold each so the decent hunter is bringing in 30 to 40 gold worth (plus the supply). I lucked out and a rich slave was at the slave market and makes a decent entertainer pulling in 70 to 80 gold though I have to deal with her luxury demands. I had some that could work the Wimborn market ok for 30 to 40 gold. I end up supplementing with some adventuring too though to support prisoners, a jailer, MC, and my starting slave.
My intent in addition to having to struggle up a bit and lengthen the playthrough some is to make it so that eventually farming is worthwhile beyond just b/c it's a cool feature and more content. I haven't tried to tweak farming at all though, so I don't know for sure that it'll play out that way on this version. Any suggestions or general thoughts? I might try to make foraging a little better or de-nerf it, just b/c it seems like hunting is always better atm, and I've got a running list of things so far I want to tweak further.