Whenever a village naturally generates, all of the villagers in that village that would have been farmers will all have a specifically different profession for that village. This is noticeable when a village with lots of farmland has an overabundance of specifically Blacksmiths, Librarians, Clerics, or even "Nitwit" villagers. Currently, the only way to get a farmer villager is to find its respective zombie counterpart and cure it.
Linked issues
Comments 2
Really? Good to know they're at least spawning.
Though, the issue still stands: Farmers have not been very desired professions in the past two snapshots. On my 16w39a/b/c world, I ran into a total of 4 villages while on my way to a woodland mansion, and not ONE of them had a single farmer in their population. I didn't see this bug in the list of fixes for 16w40a, so I assumed it was an overlooked issue.
Took a little while, but I eventually did find a farmer.
Seed: -6549889454106593879
Coords: -2417/66/3905
This world was freshly generated in 16w40a.
They do seem to be somewhat scarce though, and from what I could see, there looks to be an overabundance of Cartographers.