Forecast Of Rainfed Agricultural Production In The State Of Pernambuco, Brazil

This research assesses rainfed agricultural production in the state of Pernambuco, which has 137 of its 185 municipalities officially characterized as being part of the semi-arid climate regime. The study classified rainfall periods in Pernambuco between 1944 and 2022 and investigated rainfall instability and its impact on aggregate productivity, aggregate harvested area and production value per hectare of bean, cassava and maize crops. The Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average model with Exogenous Variable Inputs (ARIMAX) was used, considering rainfall as an exogenous variable. The results showed that rainfall has a direct effect on the variables investigated, especially the harvested area. It was proven that in periods classified as normal and rainy, productivity, harvested area and production value per hectare showed higher results than those observed in the dry periods of, as was the assumption of the research. The study also confirmed that the models developed were parsimonious and capable of predicting the variables investigated. The results showed that productivities, harvested areas and production values per hectare for beans, cassava and corn experienced greater instability during periods of drought. The research also shows that the aggregated production values per hectare for the three crops are very low. In dry years, they are even lower than the minimum wage. This result confirms that the rural areas of Pernambuco where these crops are mostly grown are very poor