Growth Model and Forecasting Prices of Some Agricultural Products in Bangladesh

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to explore the appropriate deterministic time series model using the latest selection criteria considering the price pattern of onion, garlic and potato products in Bangladesh (January 2000 to December 2016). It appeared from our analysis that the time series data for the prices of potato was first order homogenous stationary but onion and garlic were found to be the second order stationary. Four different forecasting models namely, linear trend model, quadratic trend model, exponential growth model, and S-curve trend model were used to find the best fitted model for the prices of above mentioned products in the Bangladesh. Three accuracy measures such as mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean absolute deviation (MAD) and mean squared deviation (MSD) were used for the selection of the best fitted model based on lowest value of forecasting error. Lowest values of these errors indicated a best fitted model. After choosing the best growth model by the latest model selection criteria, prices of selected agricultural commodities were forecasted using the following time-series analysis methods: Simple Exponential Method, Double Exponential Method using the time period from January 2017 to December 2021. The findings of this study would be useful for policy makers, researchers, businessmen as well as producers in order to forecast future prices of these commodities.