Forecasting cattle and buffalo population in India – A time series analysis

Abstract

Cattle and buffalo are known to be the symbol of wealth in rural India from time immemorial. To ensure the attainable socio-economic benefits from cattle and buffalo reaching the rural poor through effective strategies, a more complete extrapolation of cattle and buffalo population in the country for the future using forecasting tools was attempted in this study. Data on cattle and buffalo population from 1950-51 to 2016-17 were collected from various reports of BAHS and FAO. Various time series forecasting models were employed to identify the growth patterns and to predict the future trends in bovine population. The forecasting models used were compared to identify the best fit model. From the results of the study, it could be discerned that the Damped Trend Exponential Smoothing was found to be the best fit model for cattle population and forecasted value indicated that the cattle population in the country would be almost stagnant in the next three decades. The cattle population forecast showed a slightly decreasing trend from 2010-11 with 194.184 million to 187.661, 188.177, 188.191, and 188.192 millions in 2020-21, 2030-31, 2040-41 and 2050-51, respectively. However, in case of buffaloes, the Brown Exponential Smoothing model was found to be the best fit model and the buffalo population was predicted to increase from 2000-01 and the predicted populations were 116.663, 127.787, 138.910 and 148.921 million in 2020-21, 2030-31, 2040-41 and 2050-51 respectively.