Too much food

America’s cheese surplus had reached a 30-year high while dairy producers’ revenue had declined by 35 percent in the last two years.

To reduce milk supply in 1985, the government paid farmers $1.5 billion to slaughter their cows. In 2016 the U.S. Department of Agriculture moved to help dairy farmers once again by spending $20 million to get 11 million pounds of excess cheese off the market, sending it to food banks.