Size of army is irrelevant, for example T-5 use 5 times more food than T-1.  Look at Stats Food what are the totals for All troop upkeep.  Allocation of Hero skill points can make a huge difference.  Also shaman's have a food production component.  

Consider boosts like Moderate Economy and hero skill Food consumption to lower the amount of food that the troops use.  Or use food production boosts and or food production hero skills, but these only work if you have enough farms.  Also lv 21 farms produce double what lv 20 farms produce.  Also don't forget active VIP, town skin and being in a stronghold all effect production.

Thanks for trying to help.

However you have gone more complicated and more advanced than needs be, or can be achieved right now, we are talking about  one of  the  newest Kingdoms

I've taken care of the level of troops thing. i.e. ALL TROOP UPKEEP as you mentioned 

Maybe I wasn't clear enough by trying to simplify things.

The food stats as I tried to show before show that

I produce a quarter of the amount my friend does. 

My heroes bonuses are a quarter of my friends.

Yet my friend is  around --300 000, I am also negative but not disastrously so.

I'd also considered those boosts,  temporary boosts and the maths appear to show  they wouldn't  be enough to  solve the problem.

I know how the problem could be eliminated,   dismissing troops would do that. Wasteful !

I just cant figure out why its so in the red compared  to me. 

I believe I have covered all the stats, but cannot see what I've missed.

UPDATE;

 It now does look as if the difference is the in balance caused by more  higher ranked troops. 

So unless rearranging  Hero Skills, and  adding Hero equipment (food production boosting) doesn't  fix the problem,( I suspect  it wont,)  some  " free gift" troops will have to go. 

It is a pity that free troops automatically go to join  your existing army, rather than into my items cache

btw about dismissing troops, if you have a few number of free t4-t3 from Loki, such troops rather useless, the same story with t5-t6 from packs. they 'eat' a lot and too slow for marches, also if you'll lose them you'll give a lot of scores to enemies. So in my opinion, you should have only troops that you can train.

Food has the best boost in the game, in theory, you can boost your city and have no red food at all, but if you have a huge army it's rather useless.

The biggest hero lvl gives more growth of points (so it can be rather efficient).

But for a correct comparison, we should have more details of you and your friend cite statistics.

I don't think that my post was a very useful for you, but I can try to help.

SteelTorin said:

btw about dismissing troops, if you have a few number of free t4-t3 from Loki, such troops rather useless, the same story with t5-t6 from packs. they 'eat' a lot and too slow for marches, also if you'll lose them you'll give a lot of scores to enemies. So in my opinion, you should have only troops that you can train.

Food has the best boost in the game, in theory, you can boost your city and have no red food at all, but if you have a huge army it's rather useless.

The biggest hero lvl gives more growth of points (so it can be rather efficient).

But for a correct comparison, we should have more details of you and your friend cite statistics.

I don't think that my post was a very useful for you, but I can try to help.

Thanks , its always worth hearing what others think.

The problem has now been resolved without recourse to any intervention.

The town was attacked and the troops killed, which just created a different problem.

Not being able to rebuild anything meant there's was not enough beds in the infirmary,and high value troops appear to go to healing first. so  the majority of troops went to resurrection.

You can raise your troops upkeep to 101% with 18 vip lvl + Boost 7-Day Great Economy 75%.
Your troops will not eat anymore 

You can raise your troops upkeep to 101% with 18 vip lvl + Boost 7-Day Great Economy 75%.
Your troops will not eat anymore 

Rocketman said:

You can raise your troops upkeep to 101% with 18 vip lvl + Boost 7-Day Great Economy 75%.
Your troops will not eat anymore 

Thanks but again ,this doesn't fit in with what I asked. 

To immediately go to level 18 VIP and having to keep buying Great Economy  is a costly and not a viable option.

The attack on the town makes the point moot,  no troops, problem solved !

Rocketman said:

You can raise your troops upkeep to 101% with 18 vip lvl + Boost 7-Day Great Economy 75%.
Your troops will not eat anymore 

Interesting ...