You didn't have food or forage that was used up during the five months of the blockade already in effect. We systematically destroyed every aspect of the food system we reasonably could not a grain silo left standing in the country, not a food distribution center, a food processing center, not even the famous date processors. You can live on dates for a while, but they're too sweet for a regular diet. It's a lot of work starting fires in grain fields, unless you use napalm from planes or helicopters. Even then, it takes a lot of napalm.
Fields are big places.
Yet fires were reported all over. Even strafing cattle like South Africa used to do in southern Angola. It looked like the Depression in the thirties in the cattle country of the Southwest. Just skeletons of steers lying around. They wanted to destroy the food supplies.