"farrow"/"pharaoh" is more than easily distnguishable - to me, the first vowel in these are nowhere even close to the same - I use "a" from "apple" for "farrow" and "ai" from "air" for pharoah, along with a contrast in vowel lengths, again like "apple" and "air".
EDIT: interesting grammar note - as a native speaker, I can't even decide if that should be "first vowel in these is" or "first vowels in these are" or what I actually wrote above which is what seems more natural to me, although immediately stood out to me as grammatically inconsistent when I re-read it after posting...