Data Is Beautiful

It's a little worse than mismanagement:

Mao decreed that efforts to multiply grain yields and bring industry to the countryside should be increased. Local officials were fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action.

The government took what food there was from the farmers because they were trying to swing their dicks around and impress the boss. It's like the Irish potato famine, but with rice.