SAO PAULO (March 18 2003) - Farmers harvested 20 percent of Brazil'srecord soya crop as of Friday, compared with 26 percent last year at thattime, grains analysts Celeres/MPrado said on Monday.

Celeres/MPrado said harvest operations over the past five years hadreached an average 23 percent of the area planted to soya by the secondweek of March.

Farms had combined 13 percent of the crop by the end of the previous weekending March 7.

The slower harvest this season is widely attributed to later-than-normalsowing in the centre-west region because of a dry spell during the earlyplanting period (September-October) there.

"Farmers are starting to work through the delay now that the harvest isprogressing," soya specialist for Celeres/MPrado, Anderson Galvao Gomes,said.

"Harvest is going to pick up toward the end of March, and we may startseeing some backups at the port of Paranagua as larger portions of thecrop matures and has to be taken in," he said.

The No 1 soya state, Mato Grosso, harvested 39 percent of its crop byFriday compared with 45 percent at this time last year No 2 soya state,Parana, combined 20 percent compared with 28 percent by the same week ayear ago.

No 3 soya state has not yet started harvesting.

According to Celeres/MPrado's latest forecast, the crop should put out arecord 51 million tonnes, far greater than the 42.6 million tonnes put outlast year.

Brazil's soyabean output ranks second in the world after that of theUnited States and accounts for 24 percent of global production.- Reuters