With Dairy Farmers Struggling, USDA to Buy $50 Million Worth of Milk

The USDA’s Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935 has a section that allows the USDA to purchase quantities of American agricultural products. Typically, this is done when times are unnaturally tough for certain sectors of the industry, often during a surplus or when prices are too low for producers to make a living. Recently, the USDA, reacting to a massive cheese surplus, purchased $20 million worth of American cheese (as in, cheese from America, not just the Kraft-style American cheese product). On August 14th, the USDA announced that it would be buying $50 million worth of liquid milk, the first time that specific product has been put through this system. The buyback is completely separate from the $12 billion payout to farmers hit by the trade war...MORE