Um... I haven't played a single game post patch, nor properly watched em - mostly lurking here and there while missing all the important parts. So this is more of a question than anything else. Is there any reason to build farms at lvl 2-3? Sounds like reactors will have the edge every time.
Well it depends a lot on the other players and how they play, along with your own strategy. If they're robotic, making fuel is kinda worthless. If they have only 1 distant building and it's for aluminium (such as if they're scientific) the difference on fuel price is not enough to change the outcome. If your ahead in upgrades then food still has the higher base price, so if you want to grab funds early it's still better. If you have a lot of frieghters in the air but are looking for rapid expansion, say your in a 1 vs 1 and want to get a level 4 offworld, food is still better because the fuel produced will be drained by your frieghters, meaning your trading the cash your building could produce for not gaining debt, which is the opposite of how you want things to go. However anything mroe than 3 non-robotic players will likely cause a huge rise in fuel, making reactors beat farms. Then again, farms are sometimes a lot cheaper being 10 glass vs 40 steel...
Also what blackmagic said. Ontop of that patent water engine is now also something I consider, being fairly cheap and sometimes your burning more in fuel than you are in power, inturn reduces profitability of chem labs, making it potentially better than cold fusion.