Archives of Current Research International

Aims: The aim of the study was to investigate the historical pattern in area, production and productivity as well as to forecast the marketing prices of arecanut in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka.

Study design: During the study, both descriptive and exploratory research designs were adopted. Secondary data were used for the study and collected from various government sources such as CAMPCO and AGMARK.

Methodology: For the study, the polynomial regression models were used for the estimation of growth rate and trend in area, production, productivity of 30 years extending from 1993–2023 and to forecasting the marketing price of arecanut, time series analysis was used using ARIMA model for the data from 2003–2024.

Results: The cubic model was found to be the best fitted with a high R² value for the area, production, productivity and average marketing price of the arecanut, with highest R² value of 0.673 indicating that 67.3 per cent of the variation in production and was highly significant. (p < 0.01). ARIMA (3, 1, 1) model was found to be the best fitting model for the forecasting average of market price of arecanut with significant R² value with 0.989, and RMSE was 955.16, MAE (592.38), MAPE was recorded at 4.79 per cent, MaxAPE and MaxAE were 39.71 per cent

Conclusion: The study showed that there was a steady growth in area and production, while productivity remained relatively stable. The forecast indicated a consistent increase in arecanut prices over the coming decade. The average market price is estimated to rise up to ₹40,385 by December 2034.