“We’re milking 1,500. We have 3,200 head,” said Fairvue Farms owner Paul Miller.

When it’s milking time on the Fairvue Farm in Woodstock, you know it. Dozens of cows make their way to the barn in an orderly fashion.

“We’re milking 1,500. We have 3,200 head,” said Fairvue Farms owner Paul Miller.

For many dairy farms the struggle over low milk prices during the past few years just got worse. The coronavirus closed schools and some of the dairy industry’s other biggest customers.

“Food service took a lot of our dairy products in the form of bulk milk and bulks creams and they have shut down,” said Miller.

Since those shutdowns farmers have seen a 25 percent drop in milk prices which were already painfully low.

“We get about $1.60 a gallon. Our costs are around $1.80 so we’re already in a predicament,” explained Miller. “But this has dropped milk about 40 cents a gallon to us on a wholesale level.”

Some of the milk has even had to be dumped.

Each tanker truck holds 8,000 gallons of milk so when one of them has to be dumped it hurts.

“Usually the co-op or the dairy will call up and tell us to put it in our lagoon,” said Miller.

Despite the surplus of milk, there are empty dairy cases and buying limits at some grocery stores.

“I don’t think that bottlers are prepared to bottle as much as consumer demand and the change,” said Miller.

Farmers are hoping more federal funding will make up for these new losses threatening their livelihood and they’re hoping consumers will start drinking more milk because they have plenty of it.

“It’s one of nature’s most perfect foods,” said Miller.