February, 2018 │ Agricultural Situation in India │ 31 Articles oilseeds Price ForecAsting: cAse oF MustArd in indiA Ashwini dArekAr* And A. AMArender reddY** Abstract M ustard accounts nearly about one third of the oil production in India. It is mainly cultivated in the rainfed and resource scarce regions of the country. Hence, it contributes to livelihood security of the small and marginal farmers in these regions. Therefore, accurate forecasting of the oil prices will help the farmer to plan the area under the crop and the traders to plan their decisions. In this paper, ARIMA model was carried out to predict the future prices of mustard in major producing states viz., Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh during the harvesting season. For this purpose, time series data on monthly wholesale prices of mustard (from January, 2006 to June, 2017) was collected from Agmark net website. Different criterions such as: MAE, MAPE and RMSE were used for evaluating and comparing the forecasting performance of this model. Parameters of the model were estimated by using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Empirical results showed that ARIMA (0,1,0)(0,1,1) model was most suitable to forecast the future prices of mustard in India during harvesting season. In India, mustard is harvested during the month of February to April. The forecasted prices of mustard were almost similar to actual prices with a good validation. Forecast shows that market prices of mustard would be ruling in the range of Rs. 2,640 to 4,250per quintal in Rabi harvesting season, 2017-18. Key words: ACF, ARIMA, Box and Jenkins, Forecasting, MAE, MAPE, PACF, Mustard. *Consultant and **Director National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad. Introduction: Edible oilseeds are playing an important role in daily food basket of human being. The decision regarding the acreage allocation under oilseed crops depends upon the previous season prices, thus prices of oilseed is one of the important and highly inluencing factors from farmer’s point of view. Mustard (Brassica juncea) is one of the irst domesticated crops in rabi season. It is widely cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Globally, it is mainly cultivated in India, Canada, China, Pakistan, Poland, Bangladesh, Sweden and France. About 35% area of the total cultivated area of world is in India with 16% of shares in production. India is the ifth major mustard producing country and fourth major mustard consuming country in the world. The major mustard growing states in India are Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal. The government of India has introduced National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm (NMOOP), with a vision to increase production of vegetable oils sourced from oilseeds. Apart from that, various other initiatives have been taken to increase oilseed production in India, including mustard in order to meet domestic as well as global demand. Rajasthan contributes about 49% to the county’s total mustard production, followed by Uttar Pradesh (11%), Haryana (11%), Madhya Pradesh (11%), Gujarat (6%), West Bengal (5%) and other districts (7%). (http://www. commoditiescontrol.com). Mustard is grown for its oil rich seeds. Apart from extracting oil, seeds are also used directly in the preparation of almost all Indian curries particularly in a process called “tadka”. India occupies the irst position both in area and production of mustard. The mustard seed gives edible oil which is used as cooking medium in north India. Oil content in mustard varies from 30 to 49%. Mustard Seed is used as a condiment in the preparation of vegetable and curries. Split seed (Mohari dal) and oil is used for pickling. The leaves of the young plants are used as vegetable. Oil cake is fed to cattle (http:// www.agriinfo.in).Due to the gap between domestic availability and actual consumption of edible oils, India has to resort to import of edible oils. It is the major source of income, especially to the marginal and small farmers in rain fed areas. Its contribution