Under the Great Leap Forward; Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labor to steel production and infrastructure projects and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system; this led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by a further 10% reduction in 1960. The net result; which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods; was that the rural peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to death in the largest famine in human history. This famine was a direct cause of the death of some 30 million Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962.