After WWII in Poland, Moscow installed a communist government in Warsaw, which promptly started implementing communist policies. One of the biggest ones was collectivization of farming - taking pieces of land and joining them into massive, state-run farms. After around 10 years of this, the studies started showing that this collectivized farming is so much less efficient than private farming (which didn't receive any subsidies!) that, if the whole country converts to it, there's a risk of nation-wide hunger. Further collectivization was stopped shortly after, even though it was clearly against the official dogma of private property and capitalism being the root of all evil.
The US economy around 1800 was the first economy in history to produce a consistent food surplus. You can see the results of this in the astonishing increase in the average height of Americans throughout the 19th century.
In the Great Depression, the government ordered the slaughter of millions of hogs in order to try and raise the price of pork.
Can you provide a source for this claim? Thanks.
Poland was a big exporter of food (mostly grain) around XV and XVI century. There was also no hunger in the country, which means that the exported grain constituted a pretty consistent surplus.
Hunger was still a constant specter, though.
Consider the rise in height in Americans after this achievement. This doesn't happen without plenty of food available all the time.
I'm old now. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I EVER went 24 hours without food (I was experimenting with fasting). Historically speaking, that is incredible.