FORECASTING PRODUCTION PATTERN OF SUGAR, MOLASSES, BAGASSE AND PRESSMUD IN INDIA USING ARIMA MODEL

The present paper attempts forecasting production pattern of sugar, molasses, bagasse and pressmud in India through fitting of Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models. The data on production of sugar and its by-products collected from 1999-2019 has been used for present study. The performances of different ARIMA models are validated by standard statistical techniques and compared with actual values. Among the ARIMA models, ARIMA (2,1,1) model is found to be the best model and is used for forecasting the production pattern of sugar as well as by-products up to the period 2029-30.The model found that production of sugar, molasses, bagasse and pressmud would grow to 34.87, 16.39, 30.51 and11.86 million MTs in 2029-30 respectively. We also found that the production pattern of sugar, bagasse and pressmud follow cubic trend where as that of bagasse follows quadratic trend. The simultaneous forecasting of these four products provides an integrated framework for production planning and efficient utilization of sugar industry by-products. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, sugar mills, ethanol producers, and renewable energy planners in supporting long-term decision-making, resource optimization, and the promotion of a sustainable circular bioeconomy in India.These projections will help in making good policies with respect to the production scenario the country.