Fan noted it's about time they acknowledged farming area (7)
I believe the answer is:
acreage
'area' is the definition.
(acreage is a kind of area)
'fan noted it's about time they acknowledged farming' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'about' could be 'rea' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'rea' is located in the answer.
'it' could be 'e' ('e' can mean 'electronic' which is similar to 'IT') and 'e' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for acreage that I've seen before include "Area measure" , "good quantity of land" , "Measure used by farmer" , "Number of area measurements" , "Land area" .)