The Evaluation of Econometric Models for Forecasting Wheat Price

Wheat, as one of the worldwide fundamental agricultural products is an efficient weapon in political and global relations. The strategic importance of wheat is increasing every day. In this study the price of this product will be forecasted during 2009-2011 period taking into account the vital mission of supply of food security and self sufficiency in production of fundamental agricultural products such as wheat in National Document of Agriculture Section Development in Fourth Plan and undeniable role of price in this regard, underlying and selecting an appropriate model. To do this the forecasting performance of structural and time series models will be evaluated and compared according to the common criteria. The data used in this research include annual farm and guaranteed prices of wheat and rice and the wheat stock at the end of years during 1966-2008 period extracted from reports of Ministry of Agricultural and Central Bank. The research results show the preference of time series models (Unit root and ARIMA) for forecasting of wheat price.