government cheese (U.S.)

government cheese (U.S.), commodity cheese stored by the U.S. government to regulate the price of dairy that was distributed in the 1980s to food-aid recipients and nonprofit organizations. Government cheese has been described as an orange substance that is similar to cheddar in texture but with a more processed taste, like Velveeta.

History

In 1949 Congress authorized the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), a U.S. government corporation created in 1933 to stabilize farm prices, to purchase dairy products in order to create a price floor for milk to support American dairy farmers. The government’s supply of dairy products grew in excess over the course of the 1950s and early 1960s. Legislation in the mid-1960s and early 1970s created incentives for farmers to produce less milk and methods for the government to divert excess milk from the market. Such measures succeeded in reducing the stockpile by 1973 which, when combined with the economic woes that set in around that time, contributed to a dairy shortage that saw the price of milk increase by 30 percent. When the government intervened and allowed for more dairy to be imported, the price of milk plummeted. In 1977 U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter made good on his campaign promise to bolster dairy farmers by raising the price of milk, and the federal government created a new subsidy that allocated two billion dollars to the dairy industry over four years. The spending unintentionally helped to supercharge milk production as the promise of a guaranteed income caused some farmers to increase their existing dairy herds or begin dairy farming altogether. The CCC purchased the milk dairy farmers could not sell and processed it into shelf-stable forms—including cheese, butter, and powdered milk—and stored that product in underground warehouses.

Distribution

While, beginning in the 1950s, some of the government’s purchased dairy had been used for meals in both the military and in public schools, by the early 1980s the federal stockpile of cheese was massive and began to garner public attention: It consisted of 560 million pounds of cheese (more than two pounds of cheese per U.S. resident), stored in more than 150 warehouses across 35 states. Storing the cheese cost the government $1 million per day, and it was beginning to rot. Secretary of Agriculture John Block brought a molding five-pound block of cheese, presumably from the stockpile, to a meeting with U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan in December 1981, brandishing it to the press and saying:

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We’ve got 60 million of these that the government owns. It’s moldy, it’s deteriorating…we can’t find a market for it, we can’t sell it, and we’re looking to try to give some of it away.…It is illustrative of what we are up against as we accumulate these dairy products.

The Agricultural and Food Act of 1981 that Reagan signed into law three weeks later required the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce the amount of surplus dairy owned by the Commodity Credit Corporation. The same day he signed the bill, Reagan authorized the release of 30 million pounds of cheese from the government stockpile to states for distribution to low-income residents through the Special Dairy Distribution Program (SDDP). The states of California, Nevada, and Texas saw the first distributions of this system.

In the mid-1980s, federal policy reduced the price of milk and instituted a program to incentivize farmers to leave the dairy business, halving CCC milk purchases within two years. By the early 1990s the dairy market had stabilized, leaving little reason for the government to continue buying milk and turning it into cheese. Distributions of cheese ended as government supplies decreased.

Cultural meanings

Government cheese is a vivid memory for many who grew up eating it. Because the cheese distributed through the SDDP was frequently moldy and was often worked into the butt of jokes, some argue that the Reagan-era cheese distribution program contributed to the stigmatization of poverty in American culture. Journalist Bobbi Dempsey described the shame associated with being a recipient of the cheese in TASTE, writing:

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If you grew up poor in the ’80s, like I did, you couldn’t escape it. The telltale brick-shaped carton encasing a Dayglo orange matter that provided equal parts sustenance and humiliation: government cheese.…In the school cafeteria, or when a friend came over and peered in the fridge, the cheese was a source of infinite shame—a clear indicator of our financial situation.

However, some (including Dempsey) recall it making the best macaroni-and-cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches, and speak of government cheese with nostalgia.