Comparative Analysis of Sugarcane Production for South East Asia Region

The aim of this study is to analyze the trends in sugarcane output in Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka by employing three different models, i.e., the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), ARIMAX, and the last one Holt linear trend. The study based on secondary data spanning from FAO 1961 to 2020 was utilized for forecasting up to 2030. Comparative analysis revealed that the ARIMAX model outperformed the other models, exhibiting higher R 2 values and lower values of MAPE, MPE, RMSE, and MAE. The findings indicated that the ARIMAX model (1,1,5) was most suitable for forecasting sugarcane production in Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka with a 95% accuracy level. By the year 2030, the projected sugarcane production is expected to be 3806.84 thousand tonnes in Bangladesh, 124,936.77 thousand tonnes in China, 421,559.43 thousand tonnes in India, 4467.87 thousand tonnes in Nepal, 78,084.75 thousand tonnes in Pakistan, and 943.67 thousand tonnes in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the study observed a decreasing trend in instability across all countries, except for China where instability was found to be increasing. This research is of utmost importance as it contributes to understanding the future dynamics between sugarcane production and demand, thereby addressing the potential gap in the coming years.