A century ago, the United States began what may be our most important project to date: Tracking the national cheese supply. And according to the latest numbers, that stockpile is larger than it has ever been.

The Washington Post reports that 1.39 billion pounds of cheese are stocked in American warehouses. It's a 6 percent increase over last year; analysts attribute the rise to a decreased consumer demand in dairy milk. When cows produce too much, the easiest way to keep it from going to waste is by turning it into cheese, butter, or powder.

All this cheese, however, comes with an obvious downside: If it's being stored, it's not being sold, and that hurts the farmers who make their living courtesy of dairy.

Trump's trade war hasn't helped, either. In past years, a great deal of stockpiled cheese was exported around the globe—over 340,000 tons last year, according to the Post—but growing trade tension with countries like China and Mexico may have them looking elsewhere, such as Europe, to cover their cheese needs.

In 2016, the USDA spent $20 million on surplus American cheese in hopes of offsetting the lost profits for U.S. farmers. At that time, the stockpile was 16 percent smaller than it is today.

So yeah, extra cheese sounds great. But in reality, it kind of stinks.

Nate Erickson Senior Lifestyle Editor Nate Erickson is the senior lifestyle editor for Esquire.com.

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