Forecasting Food Crop Production: An Application to East Java

A framework for seasonal crop forecasting was developed and applied to East Java. The model includes seasonal areas and yields of rice and the major secondary crops on the basis of lagged data on rainfall, prices, crop areas, and intensification targets. Overall, rainfall, lagged crop areas, and intensification programs are observed to be strong predictors of production. The analysis also indicated that price effects were generally not statistically significant for area but were important for determining rice, corn, and soybean yields. The model performed well in out of sample projections.