"milk can’t be frozen, like meat, or stuck in a silo, like grain"
...but it can be dried. I bought some powdered milk during my preparation and have been using it to cook with, for which it's been great. In a pinch you can drink it, or use it to extend fresh milk, if you have any. It can be stored for a long time, too.
I know it's not ideal, but it's better than throwing milk away.
> Or do what we’ve done for millennia: make cheese.
Or do the next best thing as cheese making requires elaborate infrastructure, preps and a very refined skill-set (its basically bio-chemistry), which is to feed local livestock with it directly; when I worked in Bern I got the honor to apprentice for a day under one of the most highly regarded Emantaler Cheese Masters in the Country. My day started at 3am where I got there and began reaching out to the local livestock farmers by phone or email asking the list of regulars if they would be available to pick up the whey until about 5am while the cheese maker and his staff sterilized everything and got there preps ready. In addition to it being a sustainable practice I learned at lunch that he was also paid for this by the local farmers which helped him offset expenses and provide a very valued service to the community.
By 10am when the cheese wheels had already been formed and was in the brine we had 5 livestock farmers ready outside to come pick up ~3000 liters of whey to feed their animals and we just emptied the hose from the fermentation vat to their containers. It all just made perfect sense and moved me to try and model this in my bahaviour moving forward.
By my 2nd year when I went to Italy and ran the farm and the Kitchen in the agrotourism I worked directly with the owner/artisan Cheese maker (much smaller operation and herd) and he was just dumping the whey into the drain after production.
I told him I'd get a couple of chickens and would upcycle the wasted bread and whey and provide to provide them with feed in addition to the food scraps we had and could have egg laying hens producing in a month or two and would highlight it on the menu, as well as have another attraction for the patrons to visit before/after Dinner. By the time I left, our group of volunteer and BnB guest's food budget went down 50% because I was able to feed them and also sell them by the dozen to restaurant patrons at 5 Euros/Dozen. One of the front of house girls started to make nice woven baskets from straw and we included fig jam (that could be made for pennies) she'd make from the excess harvest.
I honestly think the real core issue is that we've normalized this expendable resource narrative to its furthest extreme, which the Earth cannot take any more, and its such that that only a generation ago your grandmother (if you're millennial aged) would be aghast at the sight.
The bigger problem is that these people then have entered office, or roles of supervision and created or enforce legislation that rewards that disastrous mentality and it keeps Food producers content (just enough) with subsidies that distorts all of this and has ripple effects all down the supply chain.
...but it can be dried. I bought some powdered milk during my preparation and have been using it to cook with, for which it's been great. In a pinch you can drink it, or use it to extend fresh milk, if you have any. It can be stored for a long time, too.
I know it's not ideal, but it's better than throwing milk away.