Franklin — Milk prices crashed from March through May, as schools and restaurants closed, leaving dairy farmers scrambling to pay the bills and keep their workers.

As Connecticut slowly reopens, farmers remain in a state of uncertainty, several dairy farmers told U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, on Thursday.

Courtney visited the Cushman Farm on Route 87 to provide an update on federal assistance programs in the works for farmers and to hear their concerns. Representatives from the Cushman Farm, the Spielman Farm in Baltic and Fort Hill Farm in Thompson, as well as The Farmer’s Cow cooperative of local dairy products and the Connecticut Farm Bureau, attended the session outside the milking barn at Cushman Farm.

The farmers said forgivable loans in the Paycheck Protection Program and direct grants through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, a $16.5 billion program for food producers funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, kept them afloat. The fund provided direct grants to cover up to 85% of applicants’ losses during the second quarter of the year.

The CFAP funding is nearly exhausted, Courtney told the group. A bill approved by the House of Representatives, called the Heroes Act, would replenish the $16.5 billion for the CFAP, he said. The U.S. Senate could consider at least parts of the massive $3 trillion proposal when it returns to session next week.

Courtney, who penned a May editorial arguing the case for the Heroes Act, said the proposal also includes $500 million to purchase dairy products for food pantries, shelters and food banks.

Jim Smith, operations manager for the Cushman Farm, said at the peak of the crisis in April and May, he was scared the farm could be facing a $2 million loss in revenue for the year. The PPP money and the $575,000 the farm received through the CFAP program covered part of the drop in dairy prices.

“Thanks for the funding that we got,” Smith told Courtney. “It definitely helped to keep us going. It actually brought us back up closer to where we expected to be at this point in the year. The other part of it is the unknown. When you mention that you’re not sure that agriculture is going to be funded, I hope they do set aside some for later because we don’t know where that price is going to crash, if we have another shutdown or what’s going to happen, if schools are going to go back and if restaurants will be closed again.”

Art Spielman, owner of the Spielman Farm, said dairy farmers saw a bit of an uptick when restaurants first reopened and needed to restock, but that has since subsided.

“It’s basically the unknown of what’s going to happen going forward,” Spielman said, fearing a second wave of virus in Connecticut would cause more shutdowns.

According to a graph provided by Courtney’s office, the price of liquid milk fell from $19 per 100 weight — 11 to 12 gallons — in January to about $11.50 in mid-May and rose to about $16.50 in mid-June.

The Cushman Farm has 1,700 milking cows, Spielman Farm has 600, and Fort Hill has 210, their representatives said Thursday. The milk they produce stays in the state, they said. Connecticut overall has a 40% “milk deficit,” meaning the state imports 40% of milk consumed.

Milk cooperatives the farmers supply called for production cutbacks in spring, a move Smith said probably was wise to stabilize prices during the shutdowns. Milk prices in stores have crept up some, and demand spiked for a time in “panic buying,” but has since stabilized. In one good trend, the farmers said millennials have started drinking milk.

Summer demand for ice cream has helped, but that is a traditional market. Kathy Smith, marketing and sales manager for The Farmer’s Cow brand, a cooperative of six dairy farms including Cushman, said the group is expanding its ice cream production. Farmer’s Cow ice cream now is sold in local independent grocery stores and some specialty stores, she said, and she hopes to expand that to larger supermarkets. She said the group will start selling larger, half-gallon containers of ice cream along with the usual pint-size containers.

“Milk is a little slow, ice cream is taking off,” Smith said. “We had to improvise. You can’t be a dinosaur. We have to take the opportunity and think of how you can go forward and not just hope it’s going to go back to the way it was.”

c.bessette@theday.com