5 useless Minecraft farms you probably don't know about

Minecraft farms are typically useful in some form or fashion. They can provide experience points, items, or other benefits depending on the mob, block, or item being farmed. However, not every possible farm that can be built in the game is considered useful. Some are so obsolete that they are considered useless compared to superior farming options.

Since new farms are being developed all the time, the contest for the most useless Minecraft farms is certainly up for debate. However, when it comes to remarkably pointless in-game farms, the following examples can certainly make a strong argument.

Note: This list is subjective and solely reflects the opinions of the writer

---

5 of the most pointless Minecraft farms to build

1) Statistics Farm

These farms create Minecraft villagers but kill them for player statistics (Image via DashPum4/YouTube)

Minecraft keeps track of various in-game statistics, including how many mobs have been killed by the player. This farm utilizes a villager farm design to breed an immense amount of villager mobs. However, it kills them to increase the "villagers killed" statistic on the Statistics screen in a player's pause menu.

Since villagers typically don't drop items or experience when they're killed, this farm technically doesn't produce anything at all aside from increasing a number on the Statistics screen. This doesn't exactly benefit players in any significant way in-game.

---

2) Bat Farm

There really isn't much point at all to farm bats in Minecraft, but it's possible (Image via Jaffa Gaming/YouTube)

Players have very often referred to bats as one of the most useless mobs in Minecraft, if not the most useless. They don't drop experience or items when killed, and they don't serve much of a purpose beyond ambiance while adventuring underground in caves. However, bat farms still exist for players who would want to build one for whatever reason.

Built below the height level Y=62 in a one-block-high chamber with a light level of three or fewer, these farms will spawn plenty of bats in a relatively short time. However, since bats offer nothing from being killed, this farm doesn't have much value at all beyond spawning bats for players to examine.

---

3) Dripstone Water Farm

Minecraft fans can farm water into a cauldron using dripstone, but there isn't much point (Image via Mojang)

One of the more popular farms in Minecraft is an infinite lava farm that utilizes a lava source block and pointed dripstone beneath it to drip lava into a refillable cauldron. However, this tactic can also be used to farm water, though there isn't much of a point in the grand scheme of things since creating an infinite water generator is a much easier and more effective method to collect the resource.

This farm can look nice aesthetically depending on its build. However, there are better ways to get infinite water than waiting for it to drip through dripstone into a cauldron, which takes much longer than the alternatives.

---

4) Turtle Bowl Farms

There are better ways to get bowls in Minecraft than electrocuting turtle mobs (Image via Ncolyer/YouTube)

Bowls are incredibly easy to craft in Minecraft, requiring nothing more than three wooden plank blocks. This makes an ordinary tree/wood farm more than enough to craft all the bowls a player could possibly need. However, there's technically an alternative, though it requires a significant amount of time and resources and involves killing turtle mobs by striking them with lightning.

This farm design funnels turtle mobs into a shaft, which, in turn, funnels them into a small area filled with copper rods. These copper rods draw lightning strikes from thunderstorms, killing the turtles and producing bowls. This build is elaborate, requires a substantial amount of resources, and only produces bowls that players could very easily craft with a remotely productive wood farm.

---

4) Fern Farm

It's unlikely that nearly any player would need to farm for ferns (Image via Skip the Tutorial/YouTube)

While this farm isn't all that complex, it's unnecessary for just about any Minecraft player who doesn't enjoy decorating with fern blocks found in taiga and jungle biomes. They do technically drop wheat seeds on occasion when broken. However, there are countless other ways to collect wheat seeds in the game that are more productive than growing and breaking ferns.

This farm operates by creating a mechanism that applies bone meal to a partially grown fern, allowing it to grow to its full two-block height. Players can then break the top of the fern and collect it. Why would players need ferns en masse? That's up to them.

---

5) Thick Potion Farm

Thick potions have no real use, so why farm them? (Image via CogLog/YouTube)

Thick potions are uniquely useless compared to effectively every other potion in Minecraft, specifically because they can't be used to brew other potions. However, some players still found a way to create a farm for thick potions by using hoppers to funnel water bottles and glowstone dust in a brewing stand, along with blaze powder to power the brewing stand itself.

After a short amount of time, players will have a sizable collection of thick potions to do effectively nothing with, but the farm exists all the same.