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Until traversing California's Central Valley, I'd have questioned premise of the article. The concepts of "farm" I've held all my life don't apply. Even the industrial farming of the midwest is discontinuous. Industrial hydroponics outdoors at agricultural scale. That's why the premise is plausible: these sound like systemic problems in a hydroponic system. YMMV

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I guess to clarify: the farming itself seems like a fascinating bit of industrial insanity. But the bees-dying—a-lot bit doesn’t make sense, given that any given bee is already likely to die in the year that it is born, given its average lifespan.

When the bees used to pollinate almond farms are dying at 5 times the rate of bees pollinating, say, apples — there's cause for concern.

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