Statistical Analysis of Food Grain Prices in Karnataka

Paddy and Wheat are the major food crops in Karnataka. Paddy is grown in 27 districts of Karnataka and out of which 14 districts are under high productivity group. Rice is a part of paddy. Wheat is grown in a larger area than any other crops in the world. The percentage share of production of wheat in total production by Karnataka is 0.31 %. Farmer’s decision making on acreage under paddy and wheat depends on the future prices to be realized during the harvest period. Hence this paper presents different methodology like traditional time series method and neural network method to forecast the prices of rice and wheat in Karnataka. We compare the forecast accuracy of these approaches using accuracy measures like Root mean square error, mean absolute error and mean absolute percentage error. The identification of the best forecasting model would help the producers, consumers as well as suppliers in taking appropriate decisions. In case of rice price, ARIMA model was found to be the best forecasting model. In the wheat crop, the MLP model was found to be the best forecasting model. These models were used to forecast prices for next 12 months.