Dairy in the Desert, Cheese Shops in Crisis, & Climate Resilience
Climate resilience is a measure of how well we're able to weather (no pun intended) the chaos that climate change creates, now and in the future. Unfortunately, the U.S. dairy industry has been going big on one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in our country: the Southwest, where megadairies and the alfalfa fields that feed them dominate, thanks to an outsized share of the Colorado River's water. Alex talks with cheese historian and dairy scientist Paul Kindstedt about how we can reimagine a decentralized, resilient, and more sustainable American dairy industry. Meanwhile, current-day climate threats like storms and hurricanes are making it even harder for independent cheese shops (and other small businesses) to stay open, and there's little to no support for these community hubs once disaster strikes. Alex speaks with Louise Converse, owner of Artisan Cheese Company in Sarasota, Florida, about how a tropical storm and two hurricanes in late 2024 nearly put her out of business—and how the community she created around her shop showed up for her and her team to keep the doors open.
Stay tuned for Milkfed Season 2 later this year, and subscribe to Alex's newsletter at milkfed.news for more in the meantime.
10 Mar 2026
Slick Cows, Microbe Management, and PDOs in Peril
Climate change is here, it's happening, and farmers are on the front lines as extreme heat, drought, floods, wildfires, and storms become everyday events. To protect their animals and their businesses, dairy farmers and cheesemakers have to adapt. Alex shares the stories of a dairy farmer in Puerto Rico who's breeding heat-resistant cows, a goat farmer and cheesemaker in Vermont dealing with microbial unpredictability in her geothermal cheese cave, and a shepherdess in the mountains above Los Angeles whose farm and life changed drastically after a wildfire tore through her land.
24 Feb 2026
Methane, Mitigation, and Meat
Agriculture isn’t the world's largest contributor to climate change, but it's close. It’s also one of the most fraught sectors in terms of public debate about what we should—or shouldn’t—be raising, harvesting, and eating. Alexandra breaks down the climate change by the numbers to see exactly where emissions from food production and raising livestock come from—and ruminates on how cheese devotees might introduce a little more flexibility to reduce the carbon footprint of their diets. She also considers how two very different carbon mitigation methods have been implemented in the U.S. dairy industry, their pros and cons, and their wider impacts. Featuring interviews with dairy environmental lawyer Ruthie Lazenby and Shelburne Farms pasture manager Sam Dixon.
10 Feb 2026
History, Part 2: Colonization, Industrialization, and American Cheese
Alex covers the last 500-odd years of cheese and climate: how settler colonialism and capitalism shaped today’s cheese industry and our contemporary climate crisis, how industrialization changed the scale of food production, the rise of alternative food movements like organics and the American artisan cheese renaissance, and recent economic and political developments in the US that are affecting efforts to protect cheesemaking traditions and slow the climate crisis. All this history sets the stage for the second half of this series, where we’ll talk about climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience for cheese production and the world at large.
27 Jan 2026
History, Part 1: Cheese, Climate, and Capitalism
Scholars theorize that humanity’s “discovery” of fermented dairy products thousands of years ago played a key role in our survival as a species. Alexandra looks at the essential role cheese played in human history; how climate change has affected agriculture, dairying, and cheesemaking since the Neolithic period; and how the emergence of European settler colonialism and capitalism set the stage for the climate crisis. Featuring dairy scientist and historian Paul Kindstedt.
13 Jan 2026
Why Cheese and Climate Change
This is the story of how I arrived in a complicated position: A cheese lover and cheese professional who’s questioning how the industry I love contributes to and is impacted by the climate crisis. You'll learn who I am, how this podcast came to be, and the roots of my own climate anxiety—plus what you can expect over the next 5 episodes.
6 Jan 2026
Introducing Milkfed: A Podcast About Cheese, Culture, and Climate
Milkfed: A Podcast About Cheese, Culture, and Climate is a limited series from food writer and recovering cheesemonger Alexandra Jones. New episodes drop every other Tuesday starting January 13!
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Contact Milkfed
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Milkfed?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
