"When visiting cities, the player can complete activities such as farming and mining, and is able to smith weapons from a forge.", I heard about some others in a magazine article. Either it's for you or it can be a job.
Ugh, I was of the impression that mining, farming and such were only means to acquire resources to craft items and brew potions etc - when said like in your quotation, it sounds like some sort of mixbreed Fable-esque busywork. Oh, well. We'll see how it goes...