I fully admit this "problem" is probably in my understanding of the documentation and on-screen cues rather than in the code.

There appears to be some kind of glitch with the farm/food display; the fertility of Hive worlds is not low (if you click on the planet and read the planet info, it says fertility high). I'll mention it to Sven.

Thanks for the report.

silverkitty23 wrote:I fully admit this "problem" is probably in my understanding of the documentation and on-screen cues rather than in the code.

Nope, that is definitely a bug. 100% my mistake. It will be fixed in the next patch rollout.