Development of a Statistical Yield Forecast Model for Rice Using Weather Variables Over Gorakhpur District of Eastern Uttar Pradesh

This chapter examines the effect of weather parameters on rice production, i.e. maximum and minimum temperature, rainfall, and morning and evening time relative humidity over Gorakhpur District of Eastern U.P. and to forecast rice yield five to ten weeks in advance of harvesting. Rice is the staple food of the eastern and the southern parts of the country, particularly in the areas having over 1500 mm annual rainfall. Climate change has created one of the important challenges of the twenty-first century—to supply food for increasing populations, and to sustain the stressed environment, which also threatens global food security. A statistical model was developed for forecasting the yield of sugarcane over Coimbatore for the period 1981–2007. Productivity of the rice crop was estimated for Srinagar district of Kashmir Valley using past weather variables and yield records revealing that the predicted yield was in good agreement with the actual yield for the forecasted year 2011 using agro-meteorological models.