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[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

 Greetings fellow overlords.
 Recently, I sent my dwarves underground as a civalert during a giant attack. My fortress was not prepared for this and by the time the militia arrived, the beast had been over exerted by a goat (I'm not kidding) and single punch rendered it unconscious. I released the population once the threat had been eliminated, however, a few in game months later, the food stores had dropped from 300? to 0, and a similar incident occurred during a were beast infection, although it was less dramatic as the civ burrow had a farm and the main food stockpile in it. Although I am beginning to recover, I would like to know what happened. Here's what i did during that time, if it can be of any use: moved masonry, forges, carpentry etc. further underground, along with their respective stockpiles. Smoothed a lot of walls. Built new dormitories. Trained the military some more. Started building fortifications around the bay like area where the doors are. Placed traps. Dug down a bit to build a airlock type thing defended by siege weapons and military to defend against certain things.

[towersquid]

I'm not sure if this can happen, but was it possible that the beast(s) could have fought your dwarves next to your food stockpiles? Maybe they where smashed or something.

[Lightman]

Did it actually say "300?". Sounds like you didn't have accurate records, if so.

[PatrikLundell]

I've heard you can lose food stockpiles to fire. You can also lose food to vermin in the stockpile. Also, if you don't replenish the stockpiles, they obviously run out after a while. So, that's happened to your food production? Has your farm plots been planted and harvested (and do you have seeds for planting), have you slaughtered livestock? Have you used up all you food for booze production (unlikely, since dwarves always nibble on the raw produce, starving booze production for me early on).
You can lose your seeds if all of them were used in planting of your crops, and the burrowing made you unable to harvest the resulting plants before they withered.

[wobbly]

Another thing that can happen is dwarfs not doing there job due to pathing issues. Even if they have a clear path, the further a farmer(or butcher etc.)  is from a plot(or stockpile etc.) the more likely it is that he'll idle when there's clearly a job for him to do. Also check that when you moved your stockpiles you didn't break any links, or left important stockpiles out. Try setting high traffic designations along the routes the dwarf will need to walk to get to the necessary items. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

I'm not sure if this can happen, but was it possible that the beast(s) could have fought your dwarves next to your food stockpiles? Maybe they where smashed or something.

Nope

Did it actually say "300?". Sounds like you didn't have accurate records, if so.

Yes I think it's because I don't have a book keeper or whoever it is who makes records.

I've heard you can lose food stockpiles to fire. You can also lose food to vermin in the stockpile. Also, if you don't replenish the stockpiles, they obviously run out after a while. So, that's happened to your food production? Has your farm plots been planted and harvested (and do you have seeds for planting), have you slaughtered livestock? Have you used up all you food for booze production (unlikely, since dwarves always nibble on the raw produce, starving booze production for me early on).
You can lose your seeds if all of them were used in planting of your crops, and the burrowing made you unable to harvest the resulting plants before they withered.

No the stockpile suffer no visible damage (don't know about vermin, although I would be surprised if it was the case, as the food went down after the incident). As for production seeds were always in between 1000? and 2000? since quite early in the game, and the fields were always at least partially used, although, strangely, when I placed new fields (and they built them), they refused to plant in them even though I assigned plump helmets, that I have in large quantity and that I have seeds for (most other plots do plump helmets too). It might be the booze that takes the food itself, but the seeds would be planted regardless of how they were removed and that would give a table plant level. Yes I did slaughter 2 or 3 animals to feed the dwarves while the farms were replenished.

Another thing that can happen is dwarfs not doing there job due to pathing issues. Even if they have a clear path, the further a farmer(or butcher etc.)  is from a plot(or stockpile etc.) the more likely it is that he'll idle when there's clearly a job for him to do. Also check that when you moved your stockpiles you didn't break any links, or left important stockpiles out. Try setting high traffic designations along the routes the dwarf will need to walk to get to the necessary items. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.

The food stockpiles are next to one plot, two stills and two kitchens, although this was the least used plot for some reason. There is a seed stockpile next to a big clump of plots, though it's probably the dining room is far from all plots and many seeds are taken directly from there, wasting precious time. Not sure why it's  farmers not other idlers that do that though.

[Aslandus]

Did it actually say "300?". Sounds like you didn't have accurate records, if so.

Yeah, make sure you get a bookkeeper at some point, knowing how much stuff you have is important, especially when you expand enough to have stuff automatically produced... (also make sure to 's'et them to have accurate records...

Since "produce food" isn't on that list I assume you just didn't pay attention to your farms and something happened to them, either the crops withered (happens when they're not harvested, perhaps because they have nowhere to be put), they aren't being properly processed (if you use a lot of wheat and quarry bushes but haven't made sure to set cooking and processing orders) or because they have been destroyed (not likely unless they were unprotected when a building destroyer came).

[Quietust]

How many dwarves did you actually have? 300 food can last 10 dwarves just over a year, but it won't feed 100 dwarves for much longer than a month...

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

How many dwarves did you actually have? 300 food can last 10 dwarves just over a year, but it won't feed 100 dwarves for much longer than a month...

About 150. A few died due to various incidents and there was a solid birth rate (at one point over 1/3 of total pop was babies and children). It was a sustained 300? plants, so it was kept as such until this happened and not counting meat, fish, seeds and other.

[Aslandus]

150? That means you had at best two meals for each dwarf... better recruit some dwarves on fishing and plant gathering and do it before anyone gets hungry (at this point, it may even be tempting to recruit half your population to it until you get enough in your larder to support other industries)

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

 There weren't 300? plants. There was a production and a demand, and at all time the total was around 300, with a sustained production. Then all went to shit for some reason.

[Aslandus]

That's why you need a surplus, so you have time to react when your "sustained production" hits a snag, such as your legendary grower being stuck in the hospital from an arrow to the lower leg (or dying)... basically, Welcome to Dwarf Fortress...

[Niddhoger]

Aye, dwarves eat 2 units of food a season.  So 300 food supports 150 dwarves for only 3 months (roughly).  Now, a bookkeeper will only tell you your total amount of food NOT how much you are producing/consuming.  With the civ alert/remodeling your production chains were disrupted... and they may not have been strong enough in the first place.  Only 300 food for 150 dwarves is really skimping it.  Its quite possible you've been oustripping your food production for some time as your migrants built up rapidly.  The waves are small... its easy to account for 7-15 more dwarves.  Then you geta wave of 30 followed by two waves of 50.  BOOM your farms are overwhelmed. 

I'd suggest creating a few immediate food sources (butchering animals, fishers, plant gatherers) while expanding your farms.  If you must, flood a small area of stone to create the mud needed.  Just remember that if you are trying to fish in the caverns, your dwarves can be pulled in by cave crocs and pond grabbers.  Its best to have them fish out of a grate that is in a secured part of your fort.  Hilariously, you can also (safely) fish out of a tile filled by an aquifer.  Plant gathering is actually very strong right now too.  Its the least safe (unless you have an underground herb/tree farm), but herbalists can carry 100+ plants at a time with multi-hauling.  You can easily create a (secured) herb farm by leveling some miners through soil/stone (that you flood).  I am not sure what the upper limit is... the most I've see is 135 on an herbalist still making his way to more plants.  I had to cancel the rest of his jobs because he was already moving at a crawl. 

If you have 1000+ plus seeds, you can enable them as food stuff to be cooked.  You only need 50 max of each seed.  Also keep in mind that some of your farm production is being used up to create booze.  That 300+ plants needs to be both booze and food. 

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

 My production model is basically farmfarmfarfarmfarm and when there is a problem, I send out some herbalists or slaughter an animal or two.

[Aslandus]

If you have a river or brook, fishing is a really good way to get food, just build a fishery or two and hire some fisherdwarves (and fish cleaners) and they'll pump out food almost infinitely, just be aware that fish have to be cleaned to be eaten so it's a little less convenient than farms. Since I'm not sure what you have on your site, I can't really guarantee all strategies will work, but make sure you have enough planters for all the farms (and that your farms are big enough, some people say skill is more important than quality, but screw that, huge farms are the best)