SAO PAULO, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Brazilian farmers had harvested 83% of the area planted for their second corn crop in the center-south region by Aug. 24, consultancy AgRural said on Monday, up 6 percentage points from the previous week.

Work in the fields still lags behind the previous season, when at the same time 94% of Brazilian corn fields had been reaped, the consultancy said in a statement.

Farmers have been complaining of “complicated logistics” between fields and storehouses as a reason for the delayed harvesting, mentioning a lack of trucks and long queues for delivery, AgRural said.

That adds to other factors that had already been affecting the pace of harvesting in the region, such as late planting and grain humidity, the consultancy added.

AgRural forecasts Brazil’s total corn crop to reach 135.4 million metric tons in 2022/23, with the second crop totaling 105.6 million tons.

The second corn crop represents about 75% of Brazil’s national corn output in a given year and is mainly exported to various destinations in the second half of the year.

AgRural also said that 7.5% of the areas projected for the center-south’s first 2023/24 corn crop had been planted by last Thursday, up roughly 3 percentage points from the previous week and above the 5.1% seen a year earlier.