Time series analysis of organic agriculture products in Turkey

Organic agriculture is an agricultural method that protects human health and ecosystem, and each stage is controlled and certified. The aim of organic agriculture is to re-establish the deteriorated ecological balance, to protect natural resources and to completely remove the harmful chemical use to human health. In recent years, due to the fact that consumers are more conscious of food choices, interest in organic agriculture has increased worldwide. Especially in countries with high levels of welfare, there has been a marked increase in the demand for organic agricultural products. The organic farming system is seen as an important step for the development of the growing economies. European countries with high per capita income have a high market potential for developing countries. It is an important element in economic development, especially for countries where climatic conditions and lands are suitable for organic farming. In Turkey, organic agricultural production has started with the export of traditional agricultural products in accordance with external demands, which has been growing rapidly in recent years. Turkey has an important advantage for the development of organic agriculture with the favorable climatic structure. Since organic agricultural product production costs are high, it has not reached the expected level in the domestic market yet. With the incentives and informations given to organic agriculture, organic products will be found more and more in the markets. This study tried to determine the growth potential of organic agriculture in Turkey. For this purpose, 2018 and 2019 estimations were made for the variables of organic production, number of crops, organic crop cultivation area and number of farmers engaged in organic production in 2002-2017. The autocorrelation functions and unit root tests of the variables were investigated and the stasis levels were determined. Box Jenkins method was used to estimate the variables. ARMA and ARIMA models were developed for four basic variables related to organic agriculture. The suitability of the models has been tested. According to the estimation of the variables, the number of organic products will be 229 in 2018 and 234 in 2019. The organic production amount was estimated as 2,882,399 tons in 2018 and 2,847,325 tons in 2019. It is estimated that the areas devoted to organic crop cultivation will be 658,249 hectares in 2018 and 787,504 hectares in 2019. According to the results of the analysis, in 2018 and 2019, the number of organic products, the area allocated to organic production, the amount of production and the number of farmers engaged in organic agriculture will increase compared to the previous years. Key words: Organic agriculture, ARMA, ARIMA, Unit Root Tests, Box-Jenkins