I only found out when I went back to the village a while ago.

"Collectivization" went on for decades.
All land was collectively owned; no one had fields or vegetable plots.
In this way, people starved for decades until the household contract responsibility system allowed them to have enough to eat.
Anyway, by the time I was old enough to understand things, it was already the 1990s.
At that time, we had enough rice to eat, but we often had no meat, only stir-fried greens with chili peppers.