FORECASTING THE NIGERIAN CASHEW NUT PRODUCTION AND HARVESTED AREAS

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to forecast Nigeria total cashew nut area production and total crop harvested. Forecasting future land that may be used under cultivation will help Nigeria Government to make policies on available land use and further cash crop production capacity. Projection of total cash crop production is important for implementing proper measures to increase earnings from exports in the country. The study was conducted to forecasts total area and production for Cashew in Nigeria. The findings of the study are based on data from the years (1961 to 2020) and was taken from the database of FAO (2022). ARIMA Models from time series analysis were applied. In the model selection criteria, the model with the lowest Akaike coefficients, SBIC, AIC, sum of squared residual and Mean Absolute Percentage Errors (MAPEs) of forecasting values were used in selecting an adequate model. Thus, ARIMA 1,1,0 was selected for both the harvested area and total production. Forecasting of the data was done up to 2040. The forecasted values were area harvested (190,779.74ha) and production (129,541.18 metric tonnes). The study presents an insight to national policy makers regarding this essential crop and provides them with a reference range of values in area harvested and production in future so that they may be able to effectively deal with cashew production in Nigeria.