By  E. W. Lang

The safety of government debt governed today as investors piled into U.S. Treasurys and sent the yield on the 10-year note to an all time record low of .676% this morning.

For reference, the all-time high US 10 Year Treasury rate was 15.84% on September 29, 1981. That was a significant moment in time that we used as a Fall World Incident Party theme while I was in University. For our spring semester World Incident Party, we celebrated the 1982 Falkland Islands War. I still have the invitations and written warning from the Richardson Court Housing Administration.

The Co-Celebrant for all of the world incident parties now serves as CFO of the fourth largest privately owned livestock and cash grain entity in this hemisphere, despite several rather unfortunate, undergraduate misunderstandings and general moral depravity.

Some large scale lenders, ag and otherwise, use the U.S. 10 Year as a reference point when making real estate and other large loans. I remember getting some interest rate quotes from a couple major insurance companies years ago that ranged from 1.75% to 2.25% "Over the Ten Year."

For all industry, including production ag, these low treasury rates would indicate that loan interest rates at retail have little upside potential for the near term. They may also still have a little downside potential.

For the elderly living on Social Security and interest from a life's work and saving, these low rates offer the promise of still more years of modest living. More than a decade of low passbook saving and Certificate of Deposit rates have delivered little reward for even the most responsible and frugal seniors.

Barrels closed today at $1.48 per lb., down 11 cents for the week. Block cheese was up three and closed at $1.75. Butter gained 14 cents an ended at $1.86 per lb.

Class III Milk Futures for the rest of this year run from $16 to $17 and a week ago ran from $16.31 to $17.16 per cwt. That, in turn, was off two to four bits from when the Co-Vid 19 fears took hold of markets, generally. Class IV Future prices are trailing Class III by 35 or so cents.

USDA Dairy Market News calls milk and cream abundant and plentiful, with many plants running at full capacity. That offers little promise for better farm gate milk prices in the months ahead.

I watched the Turlock, Calif. Video Sale for a while this afternoon. It looked like the fresh and close pot offerings were off $100 plus change from a month ago. A large dispersal at Premier in Withee, Wisc., had top individual Holsteins running from $2400 to $3200. This, however, was a standing room only ringside for a well regarded herd retirement dispersal.

A showcase sale in Virginia had a pair of top Registered Holstein Two Year Olds sell for $10,000 and $10,500 per head, while a show typed Fall Yearling sold for $12,000. The sale had a lot of good looking, healthy, high producing young cows sell from $1200 to $1500 per head, owing to few remaining area milk producers wanting to add any good cows to their herds.

Premium large squares of alfalfa sold for $250 to $290 per ton in Dyersville, Iowa, this week. Premium large rounds were $210 while good oat hay large rounds were $150 to $190. Good corn stalks were $30 to $36 per large round bale.

Some Iowa farm land sold at auction this week. One parcel in Tama County was 64 acres with 63 tillable, 92.6 CSR2 and sold for $12,100 per acre or $138.55 per tillable point of CSR2. Another parcel was 68 CSR2 and sold for $135 per tillable CSR2.