'Food and feed' means human food and animal feed (food), here feed is a noun not a verb

In this case, 'feed' is used as a noun. As in, 'chicken feed' or 'cow feed'. Food is usually used for human food. Feed is used for animal food, like seeds for chickens or hay for horses. When the sentence says 'feed', they mean the beggars were given farm animal food. They were given HUMAN food and ANIMAL feed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_feed

it means they were given Food or (feed) in this example to eat to stay alive to prevent them from dying of starvation. the feed they were given may not be what they would normally eat but they were given it anyway on an industrial scale (probably). Good examples are pictures or images of modern-day famine in the global media. a good example that depends on your age if you remember or know about it was a . "feed the world" pop concert and a campaign by pop stars over A famine in Ethiopia. There were two significant events that explain this sentence to you. *) event 1= a pop star argued and publicly humiliated a British prime minister over sending powdered food that would save lives. *) there was a scene on television were a young child was literally on death's door with no more than 2-3 gasps of air before she would have died, she was given some FEED and she recovered in front of the world's eyes​.