Maybe they weren’t allowed to grow things or not allowed to own or rent land to grow things.
Under a socialist/communist regime, I can imagine that’s the case.
Or perhaps they just got into what kartographer would call a normalcy bias. They got used to depending on government handouts and thought it would always continue that way.
And now they don’t know what to do. Crops take time to grow and you can starve to death waiting for the crop to come in.