Deep Learning Technique for Forecasting the Price of Cauliflower

Vegetables are the staple food in our diets. Vegetable prices are difficult to forecast because they are influen­ced by a variety of factors, including weather, demand and supply chain, Government policies, etc. and exhibit volatile fluctuations. Marketing of vegetables is complex, especially because of their perishability, seasonality and bulkiness. An accurate and timely forecast of vegetables is essential to help its stakeholders. Previous studies observed that traditional statistical models are unable to capture the complex behaviour of vegetable markets. In this study, a comparative assessment has been carried out among the traditional time-series model, machine learning and deep learning techniques in order to find the best-suited model. For empirical illustration, cauliflower markets have been chosen as it is one of India’s most important and popular winter. In order to identify the complexity in the price of cauliflower, the machine learning technique, i.e. artificial neural network and deep learning technique, i.e. long short-term memory model have been implemented. In addition, the traditio­nal stochastic time-series model, i.e. autoregressive inte­grated moving average model, was used to compare the prediction accuracy of the above models. To this end, the moving window forecast approach was also implemented to evaluate the sensitivity of these models with respect to forecast length. It can be concluded that the deep learning model outperforms the traditional time-series model and the machine learning technique for both short- and long-term forecasting.