A time series analysis of fish export in Uganda (1990 -2018)

Abstract

This research work was focused on investigating the time series analysis of yearly fish exports in Uganda for the past 28 years (1990-2018) and to construct an autoregressive model of a suitable order for the process. The test statistics used in this research were autocorrelation function, autoregressive model and partial autocorrelation function. It was also discovered that among the test statistic used in this research, the forecast for the series was best obtained using the autoregressive of order one AR (1). The goal of this study was to develop a methodology for the investigation of the trend and to forecast the fish exports using an ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average) model. A final model, based on the fish export, was constructed from a number of tentative models identified by examining the ACF (autocorrelation function) plots and the PACF (partial autocorrelation function) plots. The general trend showed that fish exports showed a cyclic trend the study also revealed that the export series exhibit an upward trend during the years of 2006, 2007 and late 2010 and a huge dip around 2010 till 2016 which implied that the series were not non-stationary. A time series models were fit to the data. ARIMA (4, 1, 0) was noted to fit the data well. Further adequacy test on the model also confirmed the validity of the selected model. The model was used to forecast for the volume of fish export for the next one years. The study recommended There is need to change fishermen’s mindset through training and workshops on proper and good fishing practices so as to abandon the poor methods and also train them on alternative livelihoods such as poultry, small retail businesses, crab catching for craft making and other as may be best sought by government programs to alleviate Poverty and put in place relevant policies, laws, regulations, awareness raising systems, coordination, arbitration measures and approaches aimed at sustainable management of the fisheries need to be developed with grassroots ‘and community participation in a bottom-up approach for ownership of the fishery.