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[tiniuclx]

I was playing on my first working fortress and I got a message saying that dwarf X canceled action: grab food or something. I realized that all my food is gone. My farm is not yet set up, I'm rushing to do it but I don't know if I'll finish it fast enough, before my dwarves starve to death. I tried gathering plants but that yields no food, maybe because none of my dwarves are plant gatherers. I don't have hunters either, a dwarf tried fishing but it said there weren't any fish in the pond. So, while I wait for answers, I'll hurry up with my farm.

[Dwarfoloid]

Even if you don't have military yet, you could steal the woodcutter's axe, recruit a dwarf or two into militia and send them after some relatively harmless wildlife if available (with kill order). Do note that harmless sounding creatures like elks will easily smash an untrained dwarves skull in due to their sheer bulk. Also turn on gather refuse from outside from 'o'rders, otherwise they won't butcher. And speaking of butchering, what happened to your starting draft animals?

[Lagslayer]

Turn on the plant gathering labor for your dwarves.

[Bluerobin]

I just started a fort with zero supplies and only peasants and just immediately set two to plant gathering (and designated plants to be gathered). Even with these completely unskilled gatherers I got more than enough plants to eat and enough un-eatables to brew (with an unskilled brewer) that none of my dwarves were ever in danger of going hungry or thirsty. Actually, by the time the dwarf caravan came I had almost 3000 Units worth of lavish meals to trade for picks/other stuff.

Assuming you have some extra dwarves laying around and a somewhat safe and lush and/or large environment, you should be able to scrounge up some food.

[mrbaggins]

Turn on the plant gathering labor for your dwarves.

Yeah, this is the easy solution.

Then make an above ground farm for the resultant seeds.

[Bo-Rufus CMVII]

I was playing on my first working fortress and I got a message saying that dwarf X canceled action: grab food or something. I realized that all my food is gone. My farm is not yet set up, I'm rushing to do it but I don't know if I'll finish it fast enough, before my dwarves starve to death. I tried gathering plants but that yields no food, maybe because none of my dwarves are plant gatherers. I don't have hunters either, a dwarf tried fishing but it said there weren't any fish in the pond. So, while I wait for answers, I'll hurry up with my farm.

When I started playing a few weeks ago, I initially had problems with everyone starving about the time the first caravan arrived.  I fixed it with a plump helmet farm (see the quickstart guide on the DF wiki).

But then they started dying of thirst.  I fixed that (mostly) with a bigger PH farm and a still, and a well as soon as I could get one.

Now they live long enough to get unhappy and wonder off and die, or long enough to get killed by goblins.

Long, steep learning curve...

[Hyndis]

Plant gathering and above ground farming work early on. Build a wall around the above ground farm for safety, or a wall plus roof for absolute security even from flying creatures.