In 2016, the American dairy industry dumped a whopping 43 million gallons of milk into fields, animal feed, and anaerobic lagoons. Though this waste is staggering, it is also not representative of the size of the surpluses being run by dairy farms. The dairy industry received 43 billion and 36.3 billion dollars in 2016 and 2017, respectively, from the federal government. In 2018, 42% of revenue for U.S. dairy producers came from some kind of government support. It is important to note that the dairy lobby is largely responsible for influencing politics to dedicate this money for the industry, and the money mostly goes to the big dairy companies that fund the lobby, leaving smaller operations to fend for themselves in the increasingly competitive market