The road to hell IS paved with good intentions (and greed, and stupidity): When a billion people are hungry, let's *burn* half of the US corn crop?

1. The Associated Press: UN: World hunger reaches 1 billion mark

ROME (AP) — The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, U.N. food officials said Friday.

Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, by the United Nations' estimate.

The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called a "devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable."

2. June 9, '09: Ethanol Blend Hike May Require Half of U.S. Corn Crop (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

June 9 (Bloomberg) -- A proposed increase in ethanol use in gasoline would require planting as much as 111 million acres of corn and using almost half of the crop for the fuel by 2015, according to a study by the U.S. grocery industry.

Boosting the amount of biofuels allowed to be blended in gasoline could make last year’s record corn prices “look like a walk in the park,” Bill Lapp, an agricultural analyst who conducted the study commissioned by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, told reporters today in a teleconference.

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering raising the amount of ethanol that may be blended into standard gasoline from the current 10.2 percent to as much as 15 percent, a move opposed by some environmental groups, automakers and food companies. An increase is backed by trade groups representing biofuels producers including Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Poet LLC. The comment period on the proposal ends July 20.

3. Food and Fuel America.com: Al Gore Saved The Ethanol

Vice-President Al Gore
Third Annual Farm Journal Conference, December 1, 1998

"I was also proud to stand up for the ethanol tax exemption when it was under attack in the Congress -- at one point, supplying a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to save it. The more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our environment will be."

Without bungling government intervention, how much of the US corn crop would be burned?