Higher prices of farm products in offing!

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From Fazle Rashid
NEW YORK, May 13: The US department of agriculture said that the stock of corn, wheat and soyabeans is smaller than expected in its latest market update, prompting fear that world will face higher prices for farm products. This is seen as price supportive report.
America exports half of world's corn, a third of world's soyabeans and fifth of world's wheat. Any change in the volume of export will have a significant impact on global agriculture markets. Corn inventories would drop to their lowest level in 15 years. Soyabeans inventories in the current season would be extreme with stocks of 130m bushels equal to just two weeks of consumption, the lowest level in five years. The US wheat production will drop 20 per cent. The price of sugar in the global market recently jumped to $441 a tonne.
The price of sugar rose to a three year high, wheat reached its highest price since January. The rise in commodities prices has been helped by the weakness of the US dollar which yesterday hit its lowest level against other currencies, an analyst said. Commodities prices are quoted in dollar.
The price of crude oil suddenly recorded a big jump yesterday for the first time since September. The price of crude surged to $60 a barrel from a five year low of $32 a barrel. Oil cartel, OPEC is due to meet this month to discuss whether to make more production cut or maintain status quo.
Meanwhile, in America what will alarm the people is the news that the financial conditions of the two largest federal benefit programmes -- Medicare and Social Security -- have been badly affected by the recession. Medicare fund that pays hospital bills for senior citizens is expected to run out of fund by 2017 and the Social Security fund will be exhausted by 2037, New York Times (NYT) reported today. Labour Secretary Hilda Solis noted that 5.7 million jobs have been lost since December 2007. With fewer people working, the government collects less in payroll taxes, a major source of financing for Medicare and Social Security, the same paper said. In Asia, Singapore is one of the busiest ports in the world. But since the recession started more than 735 ships have remained anchored in the harbour. The root cause is an unusually steep slum in global trade.
China said its exports have nose dived 22.6 per cent in April, the exports from the Philippines were down by 30.9 per cent. The export decline in the US was 2.4 per cent in March. The current level of global trade does not suggest a recovery very soon, many in the shipping business said. The total value of goods and services exported by the US fell by $3.0 billion and import fell $1.6 billion.