[kergonath]

> During the Dust Bowl, there was no welfare, so the families in Oklahoma and nearby who were relying on a harvest and had no other plan for getting income and no savings ended up without food and without money with which to buy food.

This is still pretty much the situation in most of the world. Your argument is completely American-centric, which is fine. But again, there are many examples of the lack of resilience of some agriculture practice doing quite a lot of damage.

> There's never been a time in US history or a place in the US such that there was a shortage of food for people who had money to buy food unless you count situations like the Donner Party in which a caravan spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

I did not know about that episode, thanks for the rabbit hole :)

That said, the “who had money to buy food” is problematic. Of course there will always be people who can afford 1) unsustainable practices to secure their supply of food, 2) importing stuff from the other side of the world, or 3) just move to where life is easier. It does not mean that famine does not exist, just that some people have more than they deserve.