After a lot of searches around the Internet, here's the solution I used to make things/emeralds farming easier and, more important, faster.
But, as the other solutions already mentioned, whichever you're gonna use will take time.
This step-by-step solution is for players who don't have any save allowing them to farm emeralds. So, to make things easier, we will create a new world.
This solutions has 2 steps.
The first one is for preparing the save for farming, which takes about 10-12mn to achieve.
And the second one is purely farming, and will take most of the time until the achievement unlocks. But it can be achieve between 2h30 - 3h.
First, from the main menu, select Play then Create New and finally Create New World.
On the following window, go to the right menu and change the difficulty to Peaceful. Next, activate Show coordinates. Now, in the Seed selection bar, click on the arrow and select the pre-created world Coastal Village (normally, it is the top middle one). Its seed is
-1813740965. Then go to the left menu and click on Create.
When you spawn, turn a bit to your left, walk a bit then dive and swim-follow the river to the right to reach the first village (
1052, 64, 91). You will need to harvest every vegetables and collect hay bales but leave the wheat.
There are 5 fields in this village and usually between 4 and 5 farmers.
The first is at
1048, 64, 95 and has potatoes. The second is at
1054, 64, 103 and contains potatoes and beetroots The third is at
1039, 64, 112 and has 1 line of potatoes.
On your way to the fourth field, if you cross the village, you will find 7 hay bales (
1072, 63, 126). Pick them all.
The fourth field, located at
1073, 64, 138, has 2 lines of potatoes. The fifth field is at
1081, 64, 153 and contains 2 lines of carrots. It's worth mentioning that if you're not fast enough, farmers will harvest those vegetables instead of you. So you will get less of them. But, when they sow seeds, you can sometimes harvest 1 unit of vegetable (carrots and potatoes only).
Once you harvest everything, run across the meadows where you see a lone tree, climb two hills and go to the second village which is located at
987, 70, 391. On your way to the village, pay attention to the watery holes into the ground because you'll probably need to dig to get out of them since they're too deep.
There are 3 fields in this village and usually between 2 and 3 farmers.
The first thing to do is to collect the carrots from the filed at
983, 71, 395. Don't pay attention to the hay bales and quickly go the next field down the sandhill at
1001, 64, 445 and harvest the beetroots. Then come a bit backwards and harvest the potatoes on the previous field located at
992, 63, 433. Now that every vegetables have been collected, go back to the entrance of the village and pick the 19 hay bales up the sandhill at
991, 70, 394. You have a second pack (12 hay bales) at
985, 70, 412 and a third one (14 hay bales) at
983, 67, 418.
When you've finished, go where the beetroots field is and run across the desert in front of it to the third village located at
1414, 68, 528. There's no need to swim so stay on the sand. There are only two sand hills to climb. As before, pay attention to the holes and watery holes into the ground on your way to the third village (mainly when crossing the savannah part). Stay on the top of the hill and you'll come across a savannah with only a few steps to climb before reaching a hill with a river at its base. Swim across it, climb the hill and you'll reach the village
There are only 2 fields in this village and usually between 2 and 3 farmers.
The first one is at
1454, 65, 559 and has 1 line of beetroots. The second is at
1465, 66, 550 and has 1 line of potatoes.
A bit further, at
1486, 64, 542, you will find 16 hay bales to collect. Go backwards a bit and, at
1445, 64, 568, you will find 17 hay bales to pick.
Now, go towards the cattle fences and keep running to reach the fourth and last village located at
1399, 72, 193. You will have to cross the meadow, climb two hills to reach the desert. Keep running and climbing two sand hills to reach another meadow with the village. At
1373, 70, 197, you will find the first field with 2 lines of potatoes. The second field is at
1372, 70, 155 and offers 1 line of beetroots and 1 line of carrots. Next to it, at
1362, 71, 158 is another field with 2 lines of carrots. At
1378, 70, 126 is another field with 1 line of beetroots. At
1387, 69, 105 is a fifth field with 2 lines of beetroots. And finally, at
1340, 70, 134 is the sixth and final field with 2 lines of beetroots.
Now that you picked everything in this area, it is time to go back at the very first village which is located very near, at
1095, 67, 123. You can turn around the nearest sand hill with two villagers houses on top and cross the desert then the meadow to reach it. Go to the house at
1077, 67, 117. Before entering, go into your inventory and change your hay bales into wheat. You should have around 84. You can also make an empty slot in your inventory bar to see the emeralds you will collect next. Once done, enter the house and use the bed to sleep. If a farmer is already sleeping, just awake him then use the bed. Once awaken, leave the house and go down the hill to stand at
1064, 63, 109. Now, press the pause menu and select Save & Quit to go back to the world selection menu.
The first step is now completed. Now begins the second one, and the most boring one because it's pure farming.
Now that you're at the world selection menu, select the option icon (with the pencil) on the right of the Coastal Village's save name. On the right menu, go at the very bottom and select Copy World. As soon as the world selection menu appears, select and launch Copy of Coastal Village.
You will find yourself in the very first village, with all your "currencies". Each village has an certain amount of farmers whom you need to trade with. Your main concern is to go as fast as possible, considering the currencies you'll need to trade for emeralds (vegetables and wheat) are random. Another very important thing to pay attention to is that you have to manually trade for each emerald, meaning when you interact with a farmer and hover a currency he trades for an emerald, select this one and place it in the empty slot just above your inventory (clicking Y works but only for this move). As soon as the required currency fills the slot, the Trade bar lightens. Hover it with your cursor and click it manually with A button. This way, the emerald you get will count for the achievement. If you do it differently, since the achievement is a bit glitchy, it won't count. Remember that you can only trade for up to 4 emeralds per farmer. When you reach this limit, the option won't be available anymore. You can wait a bit until the farmer offers you a new cost (generally a bit more expansive) but this will just make the farming process longer.
So, in the first village, you will usually come across 4 to 5 farmers. They're usually near the fields but sometimes can go into the cattle fence or at the rear of the village near the hill, next to the house boarding the lake.
For those who want to reduce time walking and running, once you're done with the first village's farmers, you can directly go to the end of this solution to find the "
rinse and repeat" process. If you're lucky, within the first village, to can trade until 20 emeralds within 1mn30.
Once it's done, go to the second village at
987, 70, 391. There's usually a farmer near the first field and sometimes up to 2 other farmers next to the two other fields down the sand hill.
Once you're done with them, go to the third village at
1414, 68, 528. There are usually 3 farmers. Two are at the fields on the right of the village whereas the third one is in the wheat field on its left side, near the path you will follow to reach the fourth village.
Once trade is complete, go to the fourth and final village at
1399, 72, 193. This one is a bit more tricky because farmers keep moving. But sometimes they gather in one place, allowing you to trace with them more easily. If I'm not mistaken, there are usually between 7 to 8 farmers around this place.
If done correctly, you can harvest around 50 emeralds within 6 to 7mn. Once you trade everything you could, just press the pause menu then Save & Quit the game.
Now is the time for the "
rinse and repeat" process.
As done before, go to the option menu (with the pencil) at the right of your Copy of Coastal Village save name and, on the next menu, go at the very bottom and select Delete World.
Now, for the final part, repeat the process as before. At the world selection menu, go to the option menu (with the pencil) on the right of Coastal Village save name then select Copy World at the very bottom of the screen (on the right). Select and launch Copy of Coastal Village save and keep doing so until you reach 1000 emeralds and unlock the achievement.
Good luck to all of you
