Could an artificial famine happen in the US?

Stalin forced the Ukraine into an artificial famine in the early 1930s and over 10 million people died as a result.

https://enwikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

If a like-minded dictator came to power in the US and had the support of the military behind him, how easy would it be to cut off the food/grain supply to certain regions and populated areas like a state?

Is it simply a matter of blocking access to grain elevators and meat production plants through force?
 
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Is it simply a matter of blocking access to grain silos and meat production plants through force?
No.
You would also have to disrupt communications so folks wouldn't know what was going on, and with internet, cell phones and the like, you would have a much harder time pulling off such a stunt, and without the ability to keep people in the dark, you end up fighting a very harsh ground war. I wouldn't expect that any government that tried this in this day and age in the USA could pull it off at all, unless they also had large scale popular support, and if that were the case, then you may as well call it what it would be, ie civil war, or a revolution.
 
well, if we have an actual dictator with the support of the military behind him, then he could certainly blockade some of the states that don't produce a lot of food (desert and mountain states, small eastern states?)... or some cities, counties, etc. It would be harder to do that to the actual food producing areas (CA comes to mind). But if we ever go so far as to have a dictator with the support of the military, he could do a lot of things directly to cities that oppose him beyond denying food...
 
Never mind a deliberate famine because an accidental famine would kill as many people, only in random areas.
All it takes is one small virus, albeit a computer virus.

Consider how delicately balanced our modern just-in-time food delivery system is.
If one major food company loses its central computers, then their customers starve.
The political challenge is starving one state (that voted incorrectly during the last election) while continuing to feed neighbouring states.

The computer virus can come from dozens of sources.
Maybe a malevalent foreign government .....
Maybe a malevalent foreign corporation trying to get a leg-up on its competition .....
Maybe a disgruntled religious group ...
Maybe a disgruntled group of salmon-huggers .......
Maybe a disgruntled group of hackers ....
Maybe a disgruntled group of fan-boys .......

The only saving grace is the over-lapping multiple redundancies of computer networks/internet, land lines, electronic archives, fibre-optic cables, cell-phone towers, satellites, etc.
 
Consider how delicately balanced our modern just-in-time food delivery system is.
If one major food company loses its central computers, then their customers starve.
No.

A major TRUCKING company, like JB Hunt, or Swift, or some such, that actually moves food from one place to another, would cause problems, but not starvation, and the drivers of these trucks on an account that makes these runs are not going to forget their schedules all of a sudden, and none have a monopoly, so that wouldn't do it. :)
 
Stalin forced the Ukraine into an artificial famine in the early 1930s and over 10 million people died as a result.

https://enwikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

If a like-minded dictator came to power in the US and had the support of the military behind him, how easy would it be to cut off the food/grain supply to certain regions and populated areas like a state?

The initial premise is so unlikely that the question is meaningless. If such a situation was even remotely possible in the U.S., the U.S. would be a very different country.

One might as well ask "The Imperial Japanese Army was out of control of the government and started wars and invasions on its own. If the U.S. Army was like that, how easy would it be to establish a puppet state in northern Mexico?"
 
The initial premise is so unlikely that the question is meaningless. If such a situation was even remotely possible in the U.S., the U.S. would be a very different country.

One might as well ask "The Imperial Japanese Army was out of control of the government and started wars and invasions on its own. If the U.S. Army was like that, how easy would it be to establish a puppet state in northern Mexico?"

"What if the LAPD marched into Tijuana and occupied it?"
 
That said, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the US had done/did such a such to the Indian reservation at some point
 
Just have Monsanto mess up next years seed stock. Given its all artifically sterile hybrids, this years crop wont provide next years seeds, and if next years seeds don't germinate.... (and it affects more than just the USA).

Glyphsate resistance failing in the GM seeds? Ooops...
Ok, terminator seeds were blocked, but still....
 
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A deeper review of the Bengali Famine of 1943 reveals a series of disasters occurring in quick succession.
Problems started with poor rice harvest yields during preceding years. India was a net importer of rice before the war. Then a cyclone ruined the December 1942 harvest. The war cut off rice imports from Burma (normally 15%) of Indian consumption. Half a million refugees arrived from Burma which inflated food prices.
Extra troops - stationed in Bengal to defend against a Japanese invasion - put further pressure on food reserves.
With working class Bengali farmers spending all their income on food, artisans (cobblers, carpenters, etc.) lost income.
Gov't data bordered on meaningless.
Dithering government officials tried to ignore the impending shortage.
IOW the 1943 Bengal Famine was a comedy of errors all courting in rapid succession.

A similar comedy of errors caused the Irish Potatoe Famine of 1848.

A similar comedy of errors preceded the Amercan Dust Bowl during the 1930s.

So now our WI question is: how many things need to fail before America suffers a famine?
 
A similar comedy of errors caused the Irish Potatoe Famine of 1848.

One of the first things that the Irish will tell you is that the potato crop was effected but other crops were not. The stories of cereal crops being shipped out of Ireland to England under armed guard at the height of the famine is something that drives resentment to this day.
 
So now our WI question is: how many things need to fail before America suffers a famine?
water running out in the midwest, freak weather patterns that hit crops in FL and CA, new diseases that hit grain and livestock, food from overseas getting monstrously expensive thanks to Trump's trade wars... not very likely, but it fits...
 
One of the first things that the Irish will tell you is that the potato crop was effected but other crops were not. The stories of cereal crops being shipped out of Ireland to England under armed guard at the height of the famine is something that drives resentment to this day.

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Exporting cereal grains during the Irish Potatoe Famine was only part of the problem. Like the Bengal Famines, the Irish Potatoe Famine was a cascade of errors.

First, poor Irish Catholics became too dependent on one crop: potatoes. Since potatoes produced the maximum calories per acre, they neglected other crops.

Secondly, during good years Irish peasants (mostly Catholic) produced more children that the land could support during lean years.

Thirdly, three wet summers in a row depleted grain reserves across Europe.

Fourthly, the Blight ruined Irish Potatoes.

Fifthly, Protestant (Scots-Irish and English) overlords continued selling Irish cereal grains over-seas to pay off their debts. Irish overlords had no cash reserves to buy food overseas.

Sixthly, while some have suggested that English overlords should have imported food, cost of transportation from America was expensive. Overland transport (from Irish ports) was ten times as expensive as shipping food across the Atlantic Ocean.

Seventhly, some of those debts were related to industrialization as Irish land-owners shifted their investments to new industries.

Eightly, tenant farmers were rendered obsolete by modern farming practices.
Etc.
 
water running out in the midwest, freak weather patterns that hit crops in FL and CA, new diseases that hit grain and livestock, food from overseas getting monstrously expensive thanks to Trump's trade wars... not very likely, but it fits...
Top soil depeletion/degredation is another contributing problem. Climate change is already affecting weather patterns well beyond FL & CA. Lack of genetic diversity in major crops due to over use of particilar varieties leads to higher vulnerability to diseases.
 
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