Before that, he was a reporter for Miami's WLRN. But cheese doesn't travel well, so the government landed on a third option. MALONE: One of the ways Carter proposed giving farmers an equal break was to raise the price of milk by about 6 cents per gallon, which was kind of a lot at the time. All our area around here - everybody had cheese. Unlike corn or wheat, however, milk needed to be converted into more shelf-stable forms, specifically butter, dehydrated skim milk powder, and cheese. Visitors to the underworld will even find a whiskey distillery within the mined area, which stretches for more than 1 million square feet. Long situated in a warehouse-style facility far from the major business district of Kansas . In addition, the Federal Government will spend $40 million to $50 million this year to transport even more dairy . sign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday. DUFFIN: Government cheese starts to show up in all kinds of popular culture. ASCHEBROCK: Will eat any cheese. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. MALONE: This is a cave full of cheese in Kansas City. Government Cheese Over the years, the government has gravitated toward one method of unloading dairy surplus: giving it to the poor. Rather, the "caves" are part of a 3.2-million-square-foot warehouse under part of Springfield.. [4]. But the government then actually has to figure out a way to step into this market and make it happen. MALONE: Again, our dairy economist Andy Novakovic. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. To the cheese cave. Word is the tunnel sustained water damage, so time will tell if it sees the light of day. There is an argument that our country has to be able to produce its own food because if our farmers go out of business and we become reliant on other countries for food, then that is a kind of national security risk. MALONE: And so our country has a tradition of programs to help farmers. I mean, it was really, really good product. We hope so. Looking for more unusual places in Missouri? But thats not all that was uncovered. MALONE: You were hired as someone to show up with a metal ASCHEBROCK: Where you do quality checks on it. In 2003 the Archives opened an underground FRC facility in Lenexa, Kansas. Accuracy and availability may vary. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. Missouri's caves can . The Rieger family went into banking and the West Bottoms distillery was paved over. And though OMalleys looks normal from the outside, the inside tells another story. DUFFIN: Or you can try to get your surplus goods to people who were not going to buy it anyway. dynamite. Government cheese arrived at our home in enormous uncut yellow blocks wrapped in white nondescript cardboard. Decades of propping up the dairy industryby buying up surplus. MALONE: Releasing a tsunami of surplus cheddar the wrong way would push the price of cheese and milk way down. Lemp Brewery, located in St. Louis, is another unique place to explore. In addition to serving as a records center, Lenexa has two archival cold storage rooms. India and Bhutan's yak herders face steep challenges. Then, in the 1970s, everything started to go haywire. A teeny bit was allowed but not too much. By: Anne D Springfield and Kansas City are not even near each other, and 435 is no where near Springfield, this article is quite confusing. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Hogwarts, who? The cheese came in handy for Ronald Reagan's "government cheese" program, which released 30 million pounds of the lactose-laden dairy product (paywall) to any state that applied. Emily Standlee is a freelance writer at KCUR and a national award-winning essayist. Have you ever explored a cave in Kansas before? NOVAKOVIC: (Laughter) Well, that was the unintended consequence that was fun, but the bite came in terms of how much it cost for that opportunity. Nevertheless, dairy surpluses still very much exist. At Kanopolis park, near the lake of the same name, there's a short trail from a parking area that leads you through the brush into a clearing. The cheese was processed and made into 2 and 5 pound bricks and given away as food aid to the poor of America. JOHN BLOCK: You see that cake of cheese? Since that requires capital, the dairy industry starts consolidating, says Andrea Wiley, author of Re-Imagining Milk. Get more stories delivered right to your email. And welcome to PLANET MONEY. It has a grid of 16ft (4.9m) high, 40ft (12m) wide tunnels separated by 25ft (7.6m) square limestone pillars created by the room and pillar method of hard rock mining. And it took a few years, but a flood of cheese starts to come in. Back in the 1880s, after a year of toiling through the bluffs dividing Downtown from West Bottoms, rapid transit pioneer Robert Gillham and a team of workers managed to push the last underground bricks into place. Start with this beginner's guide to the neighborhood, Local public health officials fear a Kansas bill would undercut work to contain diseases, A federal lawsuit against Missouri's 'dysfunctional' SNAP call center has gotten bigger, Escape your house with this list of outdoor adventures around Kansas City, Kick off your summer with outdoor music and movies in Kansas City, Kansas City is home to a lot of offbeat and fun museums. MALONE: So it's 1977. The Missouri Penitentiary in Jefferson City is rumored to be riddled with spirits. Like SubTropolis, the strangely sterile space is separated by humungous numbered pillars. A slice of Kraft cheese is going to be less about. SubTropolis, a 55 million-square-foot limestone cave which houses a range of businesses underground in Kansas City. San Francisco is 1 of 3 cities in which needy people lined up to get the surplus cheese. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. DUFFIN: This was not just political pandering. DUFFIN: So much cheese that Bob starts having to spend more and more time on the road because he has to actually go to the cheese to grade it. ASCHEBROCK: And that's what you grade. The bar stools are original and survived some of the flooding. No, it doesnt have to do with the disastrous flooding experienced there in 1903 and 1951. The surplus dairy products now in storage have a market value of $3 billion. The National Archives' Central Plains regional archives is moving into the heart of Kansas City's cultural and historic area. Either one should get you a higher price. There's a lot of history buried beneath Kansas City streets, from Prohibition-era passageways and underground caves to the oldest bar in Missouri. Over in West Bottoms (again), 9th & State operates out of an old Pabst Brewery building on a street once known as the Wettest Block in the World. The best hidden gems and little known destinations - straight to your inbox. The government would buy up, say, massive amounts of corn or wheat and then just throw it into a silo until we needed it for some reason. There are literally train tracks leading into it. ASCHEBROCK: I traveled 39 states, and I was gone as long as 10 weeks at a time doing that. Who knows? Government . Have you seen these caves before? It was - some of it almost taste like natural cheddar. It also could have tried to send it overseas as foreign aid, like we do with other surplus commodities. 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Basically the dairy industry is looking to expand its market and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is looking to expand the agricultural economy and they become very intertwined., It helped that the burgeoning field of nutrition science promoted dairy products as essential for both adults and children. This is Dan Callahan. Very, very expensive cheese. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Humanpodcast. Copyright 2018 NPR. The government was buying 1 in every 4 pounds of the country's cheddar cheese. The second lesson is you got to pay attention to the unintended consequences because they can come back and bite you and bite you hard. And not all of it was aging well. Slice a package of sausages or dice some ham, or both, you do you. How would you like to work underground? Born from tragedy, the remote national park is bringing tourism and other changes. Thank you! YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE. Help yourself. NOVAKOVIC: The federal government wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do with tanker loads of milk. DUFFIN: The USDA figured out that if they paid about 39 bucks for a 40-pound block of cheese, then it would have this ripple effect. Steven Rodriquez/Flickr MALONE: Bob Aschebrock spent 30 years as a USDA cheese inspector. Through the years, Kansas Citians have utilized a number of buried passageways for transportation, illegal (at the time) or otherwise. And so they try to hire more cheese graders. MALONE: So this leaves a couple of options. We are not a government facility, but rather a multi-generational family business . MALONE: Yes. Have you seen these caves before? A NASA employee needing an area to test sensitive navigational instruments was among the first official cave occupants. Experience History Aboard A Guided Trolley Tour Of St. Louis, Missouri, Few People Know About This Missouri Nature Area With Some Of The Midwests Largest Glades, Missouris Worlds Of Fun Has A Brand New Roller Coaster Thats Opening In 2023, This Candy Store in Missouri Was Ripped Straight From The Pages Of A Fairytale, This Ride Through An Old Lead Mine In Missouri Will Take You Back In Time, 10 Places In Missouri That Will Make You Wish You Lived Underground, Most People in Missouri Have No Idea This Unique Tunnel Exists, 12 Of The Most Enchanting Man-Made Wonders In Missouri, 13 weirdest places you can possibly go in Missouri, road trip to Missouris best abandoned places. MALONE: Today's episode was produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, Nick Fountain and Rhaina Cohen. Yet part of this cheese mountain represents an enduring surplusa very literal representation of the dairy industrys mismatch with the realties of the market. DUFFIN: Our supervising producer is Alex Goldmark, and our editor is Bryant Urstadt. According to the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the space was once also a limestone mine. Born and raised Kansan, Clarisa has lived in both tiny towns and cities during their time here in the Sunflower State. When maple syrup supplies run low, Canada taps into its strategic reserve. One particularly large pile of it resides in the former limestone quarries underneath Springfield, Missouri, where Kraft Heinz keeps a considerable cache of cheese in these temperature-controlled facilities. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MARTHA AND SNOOP'S POTLUCK DINNER PARTY"). (SOUNDBITE OF KAZAM'S "ROMANTIQUE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. DUFFIN: Like, hey, people of America, wouldn't you like to drink more milk? If the girl's MALONE: Government cheese also shows up in tons of songs. DUFFIN: So the basic question was, what kinds of milk products can the government buy and store? Unfortunately, your shopping bag is empty. So getting people to do it was always a challenge. The Missouri River town is known for its charming main drag and castle-like college, Park University. MALONE: I'm Kenny Malone. And you can drive your car right into it. MALONE: Until there was no more room for you to be in this room. 1. Today on the show, the story of what happened when the president of the United States decided he was going to help America's farmers by buying milk, lots of milk. And he says getting rid of caves full of grade-A government cheese was an economically tricky issue. Like, are you the most picky cheese-eater in your group of friends? The underground industrial park known as SubTroplis opened for business in 1964 in an excavated mine below Kansas City, Mo., attracting tenants with the lure of lower energy costs and cheap rents . The Atchison Storage Facility, commonly known as the Atchison Caves is a 2.7 million square foot underground storage facility in a former pillar limestone mine 50 to 150 feet (15 to 46 m) below the ground in the Missouri River bluffs at Atchison, Kansas. Springfield's "cheese caves" aren't natural caves like Fantastic Caverns or Crystal Cave. MALONE: The Trump administration announced that in order to help farmers being hurt by Trump's tariffs, the government may be making some food purchases again. China props up pork prices by buying surplus for its frozen pork reserve. MALONE: And then within five years, the government was spending billions of dollars filling caves with cheese that they could not get rid of fast enough. The government tiptoed back into the cheese business in 2019 when the Trump administration said it was using the CCC program again to provide large subsidies to offset the effects of its trade. It is an enormous artificial cave situated above the Missouri River. Yes, that is a lot of cheese. Share your experiences in the comment section below. PHIL HARTMAN: (As character) Matt, we're ready for you. I mean, there was all kinds of tricks that you - that we had to be looking for. Like anything you grow up with and then lose subsequently access to, government cheese is parked in a prominent spot in the memories of its former consumers. The Federal Government stores tons of surplus cheese and other dairy products in the mines. But the surplus was growing so fast that 30 million pounds barely made a dent. No? Home; About; Gallery; Blog; Shop; Contact; My Account; Resources All rights reserved. Well, sort of. Love Missouri? Last year, the U.S. produced nearly 12 billion pounds of cheese -- an all-time high, according to the USDA. The second lesson is you got to pay attention to the unintended consequences because they can come back and bite you and bite you hard. MALONE: As the government bought more and more cheese, sure, the price of milk went up. But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. It sounds amazing. (SOUNDBITE OF FREDERIC AUGER'S "SUNBURN"). CARTER: But I am in favor of giving farmers an equal break. Kansas City even has special ordinances that govern the use of underground space, including how the roofs must be supported, and about 3,000 to 4,000 people work full-time in the cave system, Hasan said. The Cheese Grotto isn't just about cheese storageit also allows you to age cheese at home. MALONE: And I'm Kenny Malone. There's also a trail leading to the top of the area above the caves if you want to keep going! Each week, KCUR's Adventure! When the Trump administration decided to pay subsidies to farmers hurt by trade, it reminded NPR's Planet Money podcast team about the time another president tried to help farmers. DUFFIN: And this is what people will remember as government cheese because when a government starts to give away hundreds of millions of pounds of cheese, people notice. See. NOVAKOVIC: So you can imagine, you know, you don't just kind of roll down one of these barrels down Seventh Avenue in New York City and say, anybody want some cheese? The cheesy story all started in 1949, when the Agricultural Act of 1949 gave the Commodity Credit Corporation, a government-owned corporation dedicated to stabilizing farm incomes, the authority. MALONE: Dan says that the cheese took up about half an acre of space. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. The young people do - they say, well, I can't go out with a girl or I can't go out with a guy because I'm on the road all the time. As we unloaded the caves full of this stuff, government cheese started to show up everywhere - food banks and schools, military mess halls. It has a grid of 16 feet high, 40 foot wide tunnels separated by 25 foot square limestone pillars created by the room and pillar method of hard rock mining. It is more than a food that. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. has the largest domestic reserve of cheese of all varieties, including cheddar, Swiss and American . MALONE: Now, to be fair, that's probably not enough to start filling caves again. BOB ASCHEBROCK: Yes. Gastro Obscura covers the worlds most wondrous food and drink. KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and powerful storytelling. MALONE: So to raise the price of milk, the government basically opened up the world's largest cheese shop - you know, and powdered milk and butter, too. Its first FRC opened in 1997 beneath Lee's Summit, and another opened in 2003 under Lenexa. MALONE: Andy is still in the dairy world. DUFFIN: This is why there is also a community of people who are still obsessed with government cheese - Internet chat boards trying to find something comparable, restaurants claiming they have a recipe for it. At one point, the government was storing two pounds of cheese for every single American citizen.