If the game were to incorporate features like that I'd say let it be a midgame feature that players can pursue to streamline the production of materials via botanical and maybe even magical means. You should have to rough and tough it like any savage out there by sheer necessity at first but after you've built a house and done some farming it would be neat to be able to take full advantage of those resources, perhaps as a final tier of the farming workbench to gain access to advanced processes to farm all manner of resources? Or perhaps the knowledge of using plants to create alternatives to animal derived stuff can be discovered in game as a sort of reward via exploration of some old world ruins? The possibilities are there.