Why people keep wasting time making stick trades and or melon / pumkpin farms is beyond my understanding.
Make a 9x9 walled carrot farm with 2 villagers (there are millions of youtube tutorials, sell the carrots to the farmer villager inside (he will trow them back to the other villager so you get emeralds twice for the same carrots.
I usually make 1 double farm with 3 villagers, pair that with 4 to 6 farm villagers free ranging around to sell the excess carrots.
If i am around i get 6 double chests filled in about 2 hours which in turn is around 12 emerald blocks, and i am not even zombifiying to get better trades.
I use those carrot emeralds to level up 3 of each of the iron buying professions so i can sell my iron to them and have access to enchanted armor weapons and tools.
all this from a carrot that a zombie dropped on day one come on, are you going to keep trading sticks ?
5 for it to be permanent, but 1.20.3 changed that i think no permanent discount