A lot of the times the grass hopper doesn’t just starve; it flies over to the next field and either takes what it wants leaving the owners with nothing, or Timmie’s dad has to go to the surplus store and buy a flame thrower to burn them all alive.
ETA:flame thrower action starts at 13:30 in.
Also, Iirc it was Dan Carlin I heard make the argument that maybe Roosevelt caved on some socialism then, to avoid a full blown socialist/communist revolution.