"Traditionally, the crush finishes in March - that's the normal campaign in the northeast," she said. Brazil would normally have a gap of at least a couple of months with no cane crushing until the centre-south begins harvesting in May. Some mills in Sao Paulo have started already althoughthe vast majority will begin in the next few weeks. The reason for the late crush in the northeast is that rains delayed harvesting at the start of the year. But as the weather is still good now, farmers are rushing to get all their cane cut and into the mills before the next set of rains. "The heavy rains are late so they have continued to crush, and the domestic market is high.

There are still mills crushing in the southern areas of Pernambuco and Alagoas," said a sugar trader in Rio de Janeiro dealing with mills in the northeast. "The cane is still in the field and the weather has been favorable, so they've continued," he said. In terms of volume produced by the northeast's cane-growing states, Pernambuco ranks second after Alagoas with around a third of output. Paraiba is the region's third largest grower.

This season, some 25 mills in Pernambuco were listed for crushing cane, down from 33 in 1998/99. In neighbouring Alagoas, 28 mills were listed, roughly the same as last year. "The harvest in Alagoas started later so it's going to finish later. They've also had above-average rains since the beginning of the year, so that slowed down the pace of the crush," said DataNet's Araujo. Other cane-growing states included in the northeast are Para, Bahia, Piaui, Maranhao and Rio Grande do Norte. But these keep the same agricultural calendar as the centre-south.

-- (Reuters)