Seasonal variations and forecasting in wholesale prices of rice (paddy) in Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh

The analysis of trends, seasonal variations and in market prices of rice in Guntur district and Andhra Pradesh and forecast the same for the period 1990-91 to 2009-10 collected from various published statistical bulletins. The seasonal variations in market prices and 12 months moving average method was used to construct the seasonal indices and Box-Jenkins model was used to forecast the future prices. The annual average wholesale price trends of rice from 1990-91 to 2009-10 has shown a significant increase over the years in both Andhra Pradesh and Guntur market. The annual increase in wholesale prices of rice in Andhra Pradesh was Rs. 44.53 per quintal where as in Guntur market it was Rs. 49.38 per quintal. The month wise seasonal index was lowest on the month of April, May and highest in the month of September, October in Andhra Pradesh and Guntur district respectively. Thus, the farmers could receive the better price by postponing the sale of produce during the month of January to June to later months of the year. The models selected for forecasting for whole sale price of rice was ARIMA (2, 2, 0) and ARIMA (0, 1, 1) in Andhra Pradesh and Guntur district respectively based on the Shwartz Bayes Criterion (SBC) and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The forecasts of rice wholesale prices were found to be fairly accurate and showed increased trends in both Andhra Pradesh and Guntur district.