A recent USDA refrigeration report shows that a group of underground caves along Interstate 435 in Missouri stores nearly 1.5 billion pounds (680,000 tons) of cheese, as well as 355 million pounds (161,000 tons) of butter, 211 million pounds (96,000 tons) of pecans and less than 1 billion pounds (453,000 tons) of fries.
Of course, not all of these stocks are owned by the USDA, for example, of the 1.5 billion pounds of cheese, only 300 million pounds belong to the USDA, and the rest are the stocks of various private companies.
The USDA's storage of dairy products such as cheese in underground caves is a traditional practice and has been around for decades. The original purpose is actually not complicated, mainly to stabilize the price of domestic milk, protect dairy farmers and dairy companies, and ensure the supply of dairy products, but now, this original intention has "changed".
The USDA's practice of hoarding cheese is similar to that of the mainland government collecting reserve pork to stabilize the price of domestic pork. Food such as milk and pork, which are closely related to people's livelihood, if there is no human intervention, there will be cyclical fluctuations in market prices, in order to ensure production and supply, government intervention is inevitable.
Americans are notoriously fond of drinking milk, and the price of domestic milk in the United States is similar to the price of pork in our country, which is very unstable and fluctuates with limited supply and demand fluctuations.
U.S. milk production in the spring of each year in the calving season to reach the peak, but the peak of milk consumption is in the autumn school season, in order to ensure the normal supply of milk, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will naturally think of a large number of storage to stabilize market prices, but the shelf life of milk is short and storage is not easy, so it will retreat to the second, and finally choose cheese, butter and milk powder and other dairy products.
And the U.S. Department of Agriculture has also found a ready-made storage room that is perfect for storing cheese for a long time — an underground cave in Missouri. The U.S. state of Missouri is known as the "Cave State" because there are not only a large number of natural karst caves, but also a large number of caves left over from mining.
The temperature inside these caves is constant at 14-17 degrees Celsius all year round, making it an ideal natural cheese storage ground, which also provides the hardware conditions for the USDA to implement dairy price intervention.
In 1949, the U.S. Department of Agriculture introduced the Dairy Price Support Program, later known as the Milk Price Support Program. When the price of dairy products falls below the farmer's cost line, the USDA will buy cheese, butter and milk powder from dairy farmers and businesses at specific "support prices" to prevent dairy farmers and companies from losing money or even going bankrupt. Conversely, if the price of dairy products rises by more than 125% of the "support price", the Department of Agriculture will begin to sell stocks heavily.
In the 1980s, the "golden age" of the implementation of the U.S. milk price support program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would buy millions of pounds of cheese and other dairy products from producers and pile them up in the underground caverns in Missouri, and the domestic dairy prices in the United States did stabilize within the range set by the government under the intervention of the USDA, but many people were not satisfied with the Operation of the Department of Agriculture, and the cost was too high for the government.
As a result, the USDA began to shift its operational strategy to reduce the purchase price and quantity of cheese. As it turned out, this didn't have much of an impact, so the USDA further suspended the sale that had been triggered by a price of 125% above the "support price", leaving the Secretary of Agriculture to decide when to sell the hoarded cheese, which also made cleaning up the stock of cheese a "political football".
Cheese has a shelf life and cannot be stored for a long time, so how to "accurately" release inventory is a problem. The USDA, plagued by cheese stocks, finally terminated its price support program in 2014, but did not stop hoarding cheese, which remains so today, but its purpose changed, and the hoarded cheese was diverted to domestic food aid programs in the United States.
The purpose of hoarding cheese has changed, but it has also had unintended consequences. Cheese was previously purchased to stabilize the price of dairy products, but now it is used for "poverty alleviation" projects, which in turn pushes up the price of dairy products.
During the worst period of COVID-19 in the United States, which began in May 2020 and lasted until 2021, the USDA launched "food boxes" for distribution to poor families struggling with economic contraction. The food boxes are filled with U.S.-grown produce, such as farmed catfish from the Mississippi River Valley, narrow cod from Alaska, and, of course, cheese stockpiled by the Department of Agriculture.
The Ussistence Department of Agriculture spent billions of dollars, but "accidentally" pushed up the price of cheese, it is indeed a bit embarrassing, but the embarrassment is embarrassing, the USDA's operation of hoarding cheese will not stop, but the purpose is to protect dairy farmers in addition to adding protection to low-income people. (End)