DEVELOPING A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL AND TIME SERIES ANALYSIS IN RESPECT OF WHEAT ARRIVALS AND PRICES

Abstract

Timely disseminating marketing related information of agricultural commodities throughout the country is essential in today’s scenario. AGMARKNET portal is one such initiative to collect, compile and disseminate prices and arrival data of agricultural commodities. The information that this portal provides is critical to all the stakeholders associated with agriculture. AGMARKNET aims to deliver correct and complete information to the farmers in order to strengthen their economic position. Farmers can know before going to the markets the price at which the crop can be sold which brings them in a better bargaining position. Consumers can benefit too as this will bring transparency in arrivals, curbing hoarding. This study aims to develop a diagnostic for major markets where wheat arrivals are high. This diagnostic tool will help the data entry operators to have various checks on the entire process of data entry. Thereby, improving the data quality by monitoring the data reporting process continuously. Statistical Process Control (SPC) can help the correct reporting of data. Microsoft Excel 2016 was used for diagnostic tool development. The second objective of the study is to forecast the modal prices of wheat for a particular variety using time series modeling. Data filtering, sorting and cleaning are the essential tasks conducted as part of this process. The time series modeling has been attempted to forecast wheat prices in 2017. Microsoft Excel 2016 and Eviews 9 have been used for time series analysis.