By Caroline Stauffer and Silvio Cascione SALTO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil, an up-and-coming agricultural superpower with abundant fertile land, is struggling to provide consistently affordable food for its population. To understand how, consider the tomato.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said here Thursday that he expected inflation to fall this year on the back of lower commodities and food prices. "Inflation will fall in Brazil," he told reporters after a meeting with business leaders at the headquarters of the powerful Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo (FIESP). In March, experts were alarmed when it was confirmed that 12-month inflation reached 6.59 percent, above the official target's upper limit of 6.5 percent.

SEJONG, April 1 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's consumer prices increased at a slower pace in March, keeping its on-year growth in the 1-percent range for the fifth straight month, a government report showed Monday. The country's consumer prices index rose 1.3 percent on-year in March, slowing from a 1.4 percent gain in the previous month, according to the report by Statistics Korea. From a month earlier, it dropped 0.2 percent.

US producer prices picked up steam in February, boosted by a surge in gasoline prices, but overall wholesale inflation remained modest, according to government data released Thursday. The Labor Department's producer price index for finished goods rose 0.7 percent in February, after a 0.2 percent rise in January and a 0.3 percent drop in December. The strongest monthly PPI increase since September was led by energy prices, which jumped 3.0 percent, with most of the gain from a 7.2 percent surge in gasoline prices. Food prices dropped 0.5 percent.