Financial Analysis of Moringa Tree Based Agroforestry Practice against Mono-Cropping System in Konso District (woreda), Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Agroforestry is praised for its benefit in balancing economic and environmental goals although its economic advantages over monocropping were not well documented for most agro-ecology and practices. This study was carried out to evaluate the profitability of Moringa tree based agroforestry practice against monocropping by employing combinations of methods focus group discussion, key informants interview, and household survey for data collection.  The data obtained via these techniques were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, cost benefit analysis and sensitivity analysis. The result shows that moringa based agroforestry is practiced by the majority of the respondents. The comparison between the moringa based agroforestry and monocropppoing revealed that Moringa tree based agroforestry practice is more profitable than monocropping system. It is not only the profitability but also the moringa based agroforestry overrides the monocropping by being less sensitive for changes in price and other variables. The result shows that Moringa tree based agroforestry system is superior for its social, economic and environmental benefits than monocropping system. Above all, it is the land use system recommendable in the area, where the problem of inhospitable, harsh and vulnerable environments, challenging landscape, fragile soil susceptible to erosion and highly variable rainfall is very pressing. Therefore, the government and other responsible bodies should give due attention to help smallholder farmers in the area in order to use Moringa tree based agroforestry land use in addition to monocropping.

Keywords: Smallholders, livelihood, benefits, sensitivity analysis, and cost benefit analysis