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In the recent year, pre harvest crop yield forecasting has been a topic of interest for producers, policy makers, government and agricultural related organizations. Pre harvest crop forecasting is important for national food security. Construction of appropriate yield forecast promotes the output of scenario analyses of crop production at a farm level, which enables suitable tactical and strategic decision making by the farmer. Indeed, considerable benefits apply when seasonal forecasting of crop performance is applied across the whole value chain in crop production. Timely and accurate yield forecast is essential for crop production, marketing, storage and transportation decisions as well as for managing the risk associated with these activities. In present manuscript efforts were made for development of pre harvest forecast models by using different statistical approaches viz. multiple linear regression (MLR), discriminant function analysis and ordinal logistic regression. The study utilized the crop yield data and corresponding weekly weather data of last 30 years (1985-2014). The model development was carried out at 35th and 36th SMW (Standard Meteorological Week) for getting forecast well in advance of actual harvesting of the field crop. The study revealed that method of discriminant function analysis gave best pre harvest forecast as compare to remaining developed models. It was observed high value of Adj. R2= 0.94, low value of RMSE= 164.24 and MAPE= 5.30. The model can be used in different crop for reliable and dependable forecast and these forecasts have significant value in agricultural planning and policy making.

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Availability of food is associated with purchasing power and food insecurity is caused by poverty. The needs of the poor should be protected by improving their purchasing power, through proper planning of agricultural activities for future that can produce more employment and income generation programmes. Around 20.4 per cent of Gujarat's current population does not get enough calories from food as compared to the all-India figure of 13.4 per cent. The problem of food insecurity is basically not found in all sections of the people, rather it is mostly confined to certain marginalized sections. It includes scheduled tribes (STs) as they are socially and economically disadvantaged due to their isolation both geographically as well as culturally from the mainstream population. The attempt has been made to study the major factors governing food security in the Dangs - a tribal district of south Gujarat having 95 per cent scheduled tribe population. Results showed that household size, dependency ratio and age of the household head has significant negative association with food security whereas animal herd size and above poverty level status of household have positive influence on food security. The government should focus on awareness creation on effective family planning and the impact of large family size on ensuring food security, Government can initiate or strengthen old programmes for alternative income generation through facilitation of labour-intensive schemes.

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