The orphans are in a unique situation as they are not considered people since they are kids and have no parents, so hardly anyone cares if they starve.
The chances of a famine however is really low because of magic, once a year the blue priests will go around the villages with magic fertilising cups to make sure the harvest will be good.
This is actually the main reason Myne is given blue robes, since because of the lack of blue robe priests(and the ones left being low magic plebs) filling the cups with magic has been hard.