Forecasting of the prices of cacao beans

Abstract

The growth of the industry of cacao beans was seen in the country and how its prices slowly and constantly increased throughout the years. Forecasting the prices of cacao beans plays a critical role in the development of the economy and determining the best-fitted model to forecast the farmgate prices of cacao beans would greatly help accurately forecast the prices of cacao beans. In this study, the data collected was based on the information gathered and acquired from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), with its purpose to determine the farmgate prices of cacao beans in the next 4 years. The study used the time series ARIMA model and concluded it to be the best fitted model in forecasting the farmgate prices of cacao beans. The result shows that the forecasted farmgate prices of the cacao beans have a stable increase in the next 4 years and the probable reasons would be the growing demand and growing recognition of cacao and chocolate products domestically and globally. The challenges faced by the farmers contributes to the increase of the prices such as climate change that affect the production and supply of cacao beans, high-cost maintenance, and lack of knowledge of cacao growers in terms of proper agricultural practices.