In Morrowind and Oblivion, your character starts as a prisonner, or someone being placed in a situation he or she did not ask for. So it is easy to imagine that our hero may wish for a normal life, unbothered by the province affairs.
Skyrim will have a wide variety of landscapes, such as plains, mountains, snowy fields, etc. A perfect setting for agriculture; let me explain.

You manage to buy a small shack in the middle of a green, healthy field. Since it is costly, you had to do quests or what have you to gather that money. Once yours, you are able to plant seeds and grow vegetables, fruits, herbs, etc. All that would depend on your alchemy skills, there are things you can't grow if your skill is too low...you need experience.

Once you're all settled and you're a little tired of cultivating your field by hand, you hire someone to help you out. This is where it gets interesting.

Let's say you hire a dunmer from Balmora in Vardenfell and you are a Nord from Bruma.

The dunmer is in a faction, let's say the Morag Thong. So even if your personnality is quite high, his allegience to his faction will be a problem to your character. He could report your doings to the Morag Thong, so you're constantly spied on. Maybe one day you will be attacked in your sleep, or you'll arrive home after plundering a dungeon to see your farm and your field in flames, destroying your main source of income.

You make friends and enemies in everything you do, but the impact is far more present in the smaller things you accomplish.
No need to be the head of the fighters guild to realise the thieves guild is in conflict with your beliefs.
Maybe you plundered a dungeon invaded by bandits. Maybe the bandits did'nt like it. Maybe the bandits will organise an ambush when you least expect it.
Let's say you earned a high reputation. That means a lot of people know about you, what you do and where you live.... Sure you get discounts in shops sometimes but you're telling the enemy where you are.....
Nothing is reallly safe. Hire protection for your home but chose wisely, you never know who or what will await you...

lol, Morag Thong.

Anyways, it would be cool, but definitely not a priority for me. If we can atleast have variety in our player owned houses, I think most people will be satisfied.

I like the ideas, especially the agriculture part. Not sure how the spying etc. would work with the AI, but sounds interesting.

As far as your fields getting burned down and what not, this is along the lines of someone breaking in to steal your stuff out of your house which I believe was considered for OB but eventually dropped because it could turn out to be really frustrating. Work really hard on something (a sweet artifact or rich farm field) only to go on a quest and find out it's been destroyed/stolen when you return.

So basically, instead of acomplishing the prophecy of The Elder Scrolls or completing heroic tasks, you want to be a simple farmer. And you want the game to play around this role? Morag Tong would worry about your farm wealth, ( what a threat) and the game would end here ?

I'm sorry but this sounds like something very few players would enjoy and I'd rather let mods do it instead. This sounds like something that could potentially be enjoyable, but making an entire farming system just for the Sims lovers out there ?

The Elder Scrolls V: FarmVille

"...when the sons of Skyrim would spill their own blood in a range war over the best arable land..."

Kinda lacks that mythic, heroic something, doesn't it?

No you can't be serious? That sounds completely epic!

Ehum..

I do want to grown my own ingredients around my owned houses that are outside cities, making many usefull poisons for my arrows all on my own at the same time as I sell tobaco for small profit.

It'd be an interesting tutorial level, and maybe as a way to make money throughout the game, but other than that, being a farmer doesn't really strike me as the kind of epic, heroic deed I want bards singing about.

kinda sounding like the fable level of immersion...i think TES needs to stay well away from that.

A physical version of the alchemy ingredient chest would be nice but anything past that is a farmville hard on.