Price Behaviour and Forecasting of Onion Prices in Kurnool Market, Andhra Pradesh State

The objective of present study was to analyse the behaviour of onion prices in Kurnool market and forecasting the prices for the future. Based on secondary data from January 2003 to December 2017, the future prices were predicted for the months of January to June, 2018 by employing the Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) technique. The annual increase in prices of onion in Kurnool market was observed to be ` 6.22 per quintal per annum. The highest seasonal index was observed in the month of August and lowest seasonal index was recorded in May. Price cycles were not identified in onion prices. Maximum R-Square (62.34), minimum Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) (34.96), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) (454.71) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) (263.19) was used as a criteria to select the best model for price forecasting. Based on the above criteria the model (1,1,1) (1,1,1) was found to fit the time series to predict future prices. The forecasted price of onion would be ranging from ` 2956 to ` 1651 per quintal for the months from January to June 2018 respectively