Thanks to very productive cows, and declining American interest in drinking milk, the nation is suffering from what experts call a “cheese surplus.”
According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has amassed the largest store of cheese since regulators began keeping tabs on American cheese production around a century ago. The Agriculture Department reports a 1.39-billion pound stockpile — 6% more than this time last year, and enough to give each and every American around 4.2 pounds of cheese.
Dairy production analysts say that the cheese surplus came about because the United States has a milk surplus, and excess milk is better stored as cheese. Americans drink less milk than they used to, and they drink even less in the summer. School cafeterias that serve milk shut down for June, July, and August, and restaurants serve fewer cheesy dishes when it’s hot outside.
“Milk production continues to trend up, and that milk has to find a home,” one expert told WaPo. “The issue this year is that, with so much supply, it’s going to be tough for a lot of farmers to be profitable.”
Cows are also more productive now than they were a century ago, and milk production is best in the spring, right before the demand for milk tanks.
The solution? Americans need to eat more cheese, drink more milk, and use more butter — and right now, thanks to a dearth of demand, prices on dairy products are at an all-time low.
The United States can also ease the burden by buying farmers’ production and turning it into literal “government cheese.” In 2016, American taxpayers footed the bill for more than 90 million pounds of cheese, just so that the price wouldn’t drop so low, farmers couldn’t make a profit.