1 The relationship between the food and the energy market needs to be highlighted. When oil prices go up it becomes more profitable for factories to turn corn into ethanol (an oil substitute). This extra corn going into ethanol production would normally be either go into feeding livestock or into corn syrup production. An energy crisis directly adds to a food crisis.
2 The corn market is highly intertwined with economics of other crops: When corn becomes profitable to grow then less soybeans get planted.
3 Food exports will not starve. Rich food importers will not starve. But poor importers will starve (and are starting to now). This should to considered when weighing if energy production should be scaled back even in the name of very nasty byproducts.
4 Reducing energy usage will only go so far to avoid a global starvation. Energy production must also maintain itself. There is a responsible way to wind it down if it does need to decrease eventually.
5 Or a discussion could be had if it's ethical to turn edible food into ethanol for machines when there is not enough food to go around. Increased gas prices due to artificially diverting corn to food production could be hypothetically explained to the public as a justified move to reduce their food cost.
6 All hard questions to answer where sacrifices need to be made somewhere.
7 More on the economics of ethanol