Far below the surface of Missouri, there lies 1.4 billion pounds of cheese. It started as a national dairy shortage back in the 1970s. Farmers were threatened to make dairy products or else the government would take their farms which motivated them to do so. All of the farmers made so much dairy in response to the threat by the government. The reason it is not called the dairy caves is because they turned it into cheese to keep it on the shelf longer. As time passed the cheese began to get moldy and start deteriorating so the president tried to give some away. Thus “government cheese” was born. If you are wanting to visit the cheese caves it is not for public viewing as it is far below the earth’s surface. To help move dairy products that are less and less in demand, the Clinton Administration started Dairy Management Inc. in the 1990s. The Dept. of Agriculture works to get Americans to consume more dairy, even though the Dept. of Health and Human Services has conducted studies showing dairy is not very healthy to be consumed regularly, and 36% of Americans are lactose intolerant. In 1975 the consumption of dairy products dropped, but the production of these products stayed the same. As a result there has been a surplus of leftover dairy products therefore starting the cheese caves.