An Analysis of Price Behavior and Forecasting of Bajra (Pearl Millet) Prices in Alwar and Barmer Markets of Rajasthan State Venkannanavara Murulidhar M., Deekshith M, Ranjith P.C, Gadekar Geeta CCS National Institute of Agricultural Marketing, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India Online Published on 02 September, 2024. Abstract The present study focuses on analyzing the behavior of Bajra (Pearl millet) prices in the Alwar and Barmer markets in Rajasthan and forecasting future prices. Utilizing secondary data spanning from January 2019 to December 2023, predictions for the next eight months were made using the Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) technique. Annual increases in Bajra prices were observed in both Alwar (Rs. 87.90 per quintal per annum) and Barmer (Rs. 93.6 per quintal per annum) markets, alongside a rise in arrivals in Alwar (178.03 quintals per annum) and a decrease in Barmer (-147.1 quintals per annum). Seasonal price indices peaked in December (105.4) and April (103.2) for Alwar and Barmer markets, respectively. Peak arrivals were noted in October (483.7) for Alwar and June (385) for Barmer. Model evaluation metrics, including maximum R-Square (0.92 for Alwar, 0.86 for Barmer), minimum Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) (4.11% for Alwar, 4.04% for Barmer), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) (84.96 for Alwar, 119.97 for Barmer), Mean Absolute Error (MAE) (68.53 for Alwar, 80.79 for Barmer), and Normalized BIC (9.08 for Alwar, 9.77 for Barmer), were employed to select the best expert model for price forecasting. The wintersí additive model emerged as the most suitable for predicting future prices. Forecasted Bajra prices during the ensuring months ranged from Rs. 2135 to 2193 in Alwar and Rs. 2512 to 2609 per quintal in Barmer markets. Top Keywords Trend, Seasonal indices, ARIMA, Price forecasting, Normalized BIC. Top |