This cheat is for informational purposes only. If you try this and lose your farmville account I am not responsible. I am only explaining it so that you can see the pros and cons as to why zynga has made these game strategies the way they are in co-op farming.
During my brief few weeks of playing farmville, I came across a farm that was only for harvesting trees and crops. My first though was the person had issues, like from the show "Monk". Than I realized that this is actually a perfect way to cheat. You of course need the patience and the smarts not to get caught and have your farmville account shut down unless this is allowed.
What the player does is opens a second facebook account just for farmville. They than get pretty much the same friends and neighbors as on the other account, but this account is a bit different. They don't chat on this account, they just have a farmville. Next they just use trees and plots for crops only, no animals, no decorations nothing that doesn't earn money, not even as much as a plow, because than you have to search for fuel and as you may know is a chore in itself as your farm grows. You only can receive so much fuel in the newsfeed before your cut off and get 100 coins instead.
Now you have your 1500 plots of land growing only the most expensive crop and a bunch of trees. You can of course have the arborists, they are the tree harvesters, that makes it much easier when you have to take into consideration that you are stuck plowing, harvesting and seeding your land square, by square, by square. This of course will jump you up in levels quickly earning that FV cash that can be used for those neat gifts. You can also send those FV gifts to a friend (your other cool farm) to decorate the farm with.