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The dairy products sold at grocery stores haven't been enough to make up for losses found in the closure of schools and limits on restaurants, according to dairy farmers and advocates.
"I have not dumped anything, but I know farmers who have dumped milk," said Dave Snook of Loganton, who in addition to owning a dairy farm sells veterinary medicine and equipment to other farmers.
When milk processing plants no longer accept the raw milk produced by farmers, they're forced to dump it before it spoils.
Snook said he is able to make a small profit from the current price of milk, which is around $15 per hundredweight, but "if it hangs on too many months, I'm going to be able to say that I'm not going to be able to do it."
Many dairy farmers, like Snook, sell their milk to a co-operative milk processing plant, or a plant which is collectively owned by many farms who share the profits. However even this has its challenges, as every hundredweight Snook produces above his allotted amount is only sold for $5 per hundredweight.
Dairy farmers usually don't get paid for their milk until a month or more after it has already been processed and distributed, he said, so it may be some time before most dairy farmers in the area begin to feel the sting of COVID-19.
For an industry already on the brink, Snook said he is concerned.
"We're worried that the price is going to be down, that we're not going to be able to exist at a lower price," he said.
In providing equipment and non-prescription medicine to other farmers, Snook said he's beginning to notice some issues.
"I know that if I supplied a farmer for six months and haven't received a check, I know that the farmer is having very difficult times," he said.
When Snook spoke to the Sun-Gazette after having finished his daily rounds recently, he said a veal farmer was the only person to have paid him.
Eva Balazs, director of marketing at Upstate Niagara Cooperative Inc., which owns Valley Farms Dairy on East Third Street, said the processing plant is working hard to get their milk to bottling plants.
"The reason why things are different now is that the food service industry is not operating at full steam," she said. "Restaurants are only offering take-out or delivery, and schools are only operating at about 20 percent capacity for eating programs."
These, paired with airlines operating under a reduced capacity and foodlines out of operation, have all worked together to frustrate farmers, said Balazs.
"Farmers are the hardest working people, and they are not happy about this," she said. "They want to continue to feed the community."
Wanda Derr, of Heaven's Blessin's Jersey farm in Linden, said she doesn't understand why milk products intended for restaurants or schools are not being directed to stores.
"When you go into the grocery store, you can only buy so much dairy products but yet we have it available, it's ready to be processed and people to purchase, but it's being minimized," she said.
Although Derr said she had not been told to dump her milk, she has heard of other farmers outside of Lycoming County having to do so.
"They're told that they may as well just dump it, the ones that we know of, they were told just to dump it in their fields like manure," she said. "In this day and age of people losing their jobs, you hear of food banks and donating more food. There's long lines of people who need food, it could be redirected to places like that -- even if it is in the small containers."
"Why we as Americans are dumping something that could be used in a good way is confusing," she added.
The milk futures, as anticipated by the stock market, are the lowest that they have been for a long time, said Derr.
"For small farmers, it's going to be extremely tough for us to carry on," she said. "We're just going to trust that God is going to take care of us."