It’s a result of Jimmy Carter’s dairy subsidies. There was a Planet Money episode about it, and the origin of the phrase “government cheese”:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/31/643486297/episode-862-big-government-cheese
They’re preparing for the Dragonborn. He will need all 1.4 billion pounds of cheese to heal mid fight.
Ok who’s been messing with their Skyrim console commands?
I thought, “1.4 billion pounds of cheese can’t be a real number, right?” Turns out, it kinda is. 1.4 billion pounds (actually generally 1.45-1.5 billion) is the amount of cheese the USDA stores in cold storage warehouses across the US. And indeed, much of that seems to be in caves in Missouri. But any particular cave probably only stores a few million pounds, although getting specific numbers is rather difficult.
That’s just my emergency stash. I try to keep at least two week’s worth of cheese there at any time.
