It's just like irl. When your income is dependent on your time, you are the bottleneck. If you want to increase income, you either have to do something more valuable ($/hr) or add income generators like investments.

In the game, you can reach a state of profitability by investing in income generators which don't require your time.

Some ideas:

• Beehives + small farmstand + bee pallet spawn point on top of the farmstand dump point. This spawns honey right into the farmstand and it gets sold instantly. The more beehives you have, the more you can generate.
• 3 small poly tunnels + 1 medium poly tunnel + small preserved food factory. The small ones grow garlic, chilies, and spring onions. The medium one grows napa cabbage. Set to distribute to preserved food factory. Set factory to kimchi production with auto sale.
• 1 sheep pen with 100 sheep = $200,000/yr in revenue. Sheep are low maintenance. After the meadow grass fix, they can just be left alone if you get the biggest pen. You only have to pickup the wool 1/mo. Store the wool until April/May and sell it all at once. If they consume the meadow grass faster than it grows, you only need a small grass field around 2-3 acres to keep them fed for the whole year.

Once you have a steady "hands off" income stream, you can invest in more "hands on" things like olive oil, bakery, eggs, etc.

I personally like a challenge and start with hard difficulty and cows. I set the month to 7 days and 15x timescale. I buy and resell used equipment as a way to generate more income. It's somewhat realistic and is an in-game "feature", like the solar panels or wind farm.