Corn

I recently drove across the continent, and I was amazed how many cornfields there were in virtually every state. Clearly far more corn than we ever eat... what are we doing with all this corn?
Video on the production, harvesting, and processing of corn to make syrup, plastic, xanthan gum, popcorn and ethanol.
Corn production stand at 5 tons per acre, and goes up about 6% per year. No other crop produces that much biomass per acre.
99% of corn is an inedible variety called dent corn that's high in starch.
Corn takes 127 days to grow.
Sweet corn has to be cooled to just above freezing immediately after harvest or the sugar turns into starch.

http://youtu.be/LGJ6D3KNJ9E

A history of corn monoculture: https://youtu.be/i6teBcfKpik