A colleague asked me last week if the increasing cost of corn due to demand for biofuels had me worried about my grocery bill, because hey, if there's one thing vegans eat besides tofu and tofu accessories, it's got to be corn, right?

I gave him my usual answer about how the main customers for corn were the livestock industry (for feed) and probably soft drink manufacturers (for good ol' high-fructose corn syrup), but I wish I'd seen this story earlier to have more fun with the discussion:

British pig farmers are threatening to close their farms, claiming a net loss of up to 26 pounds per pig due to the rising cost of feed and I guess some weirdness to the market structure. They've launched an appeal to the public to get the price of pork a little higher. Ironically, if they all close down pork prices will rise and feed prices will fall, probably to a level that would make pig farming profitable after all - as long as nobody actually does it. Oh, and this is an issue in the USA as well.

People have touted the environmental benefits of a plant-based diet for years, but who knew that simply encouraging biofuels would have such a great economic impact on animal farming?