CHENANGO COUNTY – While recently low milk prices are making consumers happy, it may spell trouble ahead for the dairy industry.

Despite last year’s high demand for milk globally that left farmers struggling to keep up, the trend this year has shifted. In 2014, farmers were earning as much as $25 per hundredweight (about 10 gallons of milk) which translated to a consumer price of approximately $3.86 for a gallon of milk in the dairy aisle.

But with less demand overseas this year, namely from China pulling back on its dairy imports after stockpiling milk powder, area farmers are reeling from a surplus, driving prices to alarmingly low levels.

According to the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), the steep decline is leaving an unavoidable impact specifically on small farms and their communities. The organization cites a 85 cents per gallon plummet since November, 2014, causing more strain to an already striving industry.

“We have lost about 175,000 to 180,000 farms over the last several years. We’re down to about 45,000 dairy farmers across the U.S.,” said Arden Tewksbury of the NFFC during a telephone conference held earlier this week. “There is no way a small dairy farmer can survive on the recent lull in prices.”

Tewksbury said given the global demand for milk products in 2014, many dairy farmers in the U.S. were advised to ramp up production, which for many meant investing in new equipment and labor expenses. Now the industry faces overproduction and a milk pricing system, based on a single formula applied to dairy farmers in every part of the country, that simply isn’t working, he said.