Author(s): B. S. Dhekale, P. K. Sahu, K. P. Vishwajith, P. Mishra and Md Noman

Abstract: Tea production in West Bengal is playing great role not only in world tea market but also in contributing substantially to Indian economy and in employment generation. Taking all these into consideration the present study attempts to analyze the growth and trend behavior of tea production scenario in West Bengal. Using time series data on tea production parameters and factors of production, the study attempts to model and forecast the future production behavior of tea in West Bengal. In this endeavour, a new method in formulating weather and other factor indices have been developed using direct effects from path coefficient analysis. Comparison of methods indicates that the newly developed method has outperformed some of the existing methods in literature. The study identified relative humidity and fertilizer consumption as the significant contributors in tea production. Using ARIMA models, in association with factors of production the study forecasts tea production of 318992 thousand kg from 120345 hectare of plantation with average productivity of around 2625 kg-1/ha in West Bengal during 2020....

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