Sure, I like cheese, you like cheese, lots of people like cheese. But this is getting absurd.
The United States is currently in the midst of an epic cheese glut — with 1.2 billion pounds of cheese sitting in cold storage. If we wanted to patriotically eat through that surplus, every man, woman, and child would have to grab an extra 3 pounds of cheddar, feta, or provolone and start gnawing. (That’s over and above the 36 pounds of cheese per year the average American already eats.)
As my colleagues Brian Resnick and Javier Zarracina calculated/illustrated, if you put all that cheese together, it’d be the size of a small mountain:
(Javier Zarracina/Vox)
This cheese surplus has been disastrous for dairy producers and farmers, whose incomes have dropped 35 percent over the past two years as prices have collapsed. To help ease the pain, the US Department of Agriculture offered this week to buy up $20 million worth of cheddar cheese and distribute it to food banks. This is the second such purchase in three months.
This cheese surplus has been disastrous for dairy producers and farmers, whose incomes have dropped 35 percent over the past two years as prices have collapsed. To help ease the pain, the US Department of Agriculture offered this week to buy up $20 million worth of cheddar cheese and distribute it to food banks. This is the second such purchase in three months.
The hitch? These government interventions are arguably making things worse, keeping the dairy market, uh, udderly out of whack.
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