The article is devoted to the study of food supply for the population of Kazakhstan in 1920-1930. The author gives a generalized description of the problems associated with the shortage of consumer goods. Considerable attention is paid to the main reasons that influenced the low degree of satisfaction of the needs of the population. Based on a wide range of sources, social changes in the behavior of Sharua peasants in the context of an aggravated food problem are shown. As a result, it was determined that the export of raw materials, food, income from agriculture, which were the main sources of financing for industrialization, led not only to an aggravation of the crisis situation in agriculture, but, as a result, to massive famine.