Apple being the most dominating fruit crop in Himachal Pradesh accounts for 48 per cent of the total area under fruit crops and more than 86 per cent of the total fruit production of the state. This study focuses on forecasting the cultivated area and production of apple in Himachal Pradesh using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model using SPSS and SAS softwares. Time series data covering the period of 1973–74 to 2011–12 were used for the study. The selection of models for area and production was based on root mean square error, mean absolute proportion per cent error, maximum absolute proportion per cent error, mean absolute error, maximum absolute error, normalized BIC, Akaike information criterion, Schwartz Bayesian criterion and values of R2. From the different (p, d, q) models ARIMA (1, 1, 4) and ARIMA (0, 1, 1) were selected for forecasting the area and production of apple in Himachal Pradesh. The analysis showed that if the present growth rates continue the apple area and production in the year 2023–24 will be 126531.08 hectares and 548806.46 MT respectively with 22.08 and 99.54 per cent increase in area and production respectively from 2011–12 to 2023–24.
ARIMA, forecasting, auto correlation function, AIC, BIC, apple
