Modifying quantitative forecasts of livestock production using expert judgements-An application to the Australian lamb industry

The judgemental modification of quantitative forecasts has become increasingly adopted in the production of agricultural commodity outlook information. Such modifications allow current period information to be incorporated into the forecast value, and ensure that the forecast is realistic in the context of current industry trends. This paper investigates the potential value of this approach in production forecasting in the Australian lamb industry. Several individual and composite econometric models were used to forecast a lamb-slaughterings series with a selected forecast being given to a panel of lamb industry specialists for consideration and modification. The results demonstrate that this approach offers considerable accuracy advantages in the short-term forecasting of livestock market variables, such as slaughterings, whose values can be strongly influenced by current industry conditions.