Profitability Analysis of Citronella Grass (Cymbopogon winterianus) Cultivation for Herbal Production: The Case of Wondo Genet District, Southern Ethiopia

Aromatic plants are plants that possess aromatic compounds, most of which are essential oils which are volatile at room temperature. They can be used as raw materials for extraction of essential oils which, in turn, are used in the flavor and fragrance industries, as well as the sources of spices, herbs, and other natural products such as traditional medicines, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, botanical pesticides, insect repellents, herbal teas/drinks, etc. Aiming to this, Wondo genet agricultural research center (one of the centers of Ethiopian institute of agricultural research)is responsible in doing research, promoting and coordinating aromatic, medicinal and bio energy plants at national level including other research activities on soil and water, livestock, forestry, and other food crops. In Ethiopia; other than the traditional aspect, the scientific aspect of aromatic and medicinal plants is not well known and little has been done on their economic contribution to households. Therefore Wondo genet agricultural research center has been done cost-benefit analysis for a selected aromatic grass namely Cymbopogon winterianus at wondo genet experimental site. The selected plant was planted based on its recommended spacing at wondo genet experimental site and the required data was collected. For the analysis net return to land (birr/ha) was used as a parameter. The analysis shows that, the selected aromatic grass provides the net return of which is 80417.32 birr/ha at fresh bio mass price of 1 birr. The NPV and BCR for Nardos grass was found to be: 76,858.5 and 2.3 respectively.


Introduction
Aromatic plants are plants that possess aromatic compounds, most of which are essential oils which are volatile in room temperature. They have traditionally been used as raw materials for extraction of essential oils which, in turn, are used in the flavor and fragrance industries, as well as the sources of spices, herbs, and other natural products such as traditional medicines, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, botanical pesticides, insect repellents, herbal teas/drinks, etc. And they are plants that possess odorous volatile substances which occur as essential oil, gum exudates, balsam and oleoresin in one or more parts, namely, root, wood, bark, stem, foliage, flower and fruit.

Production of Cymbopogon winterianus 1. Cymbopogon Winterianus (Citronella grass):
is an aromatic grass belonging to the family Gramineae and genus Cymbopogon. Citronella grass is a tufted perennial grass, the leaves of which on distillation give a yellowish -brown essential oil with citrus odor. Citronella oil serves as a starting material for the extaction of geraniol and citronellal which can be converted into aroma chemicals such as citronellol , hydroxy citronellol , synthetic menthol and esters of geraniol. These find extensive use in soap, perfumery, and flavoring industries throughout the world. Soaps, soap flakes, detergents, household cleansers, insecticides and other technical products are often perfumed exclusively with this oil.

Medicinal and Aromatic Plants World Market Volume
Generally, in the period 1991-2003, the reported average annual global exports of medicinal and aromatic plant material amounted on average to 467,000 tones, or approximately € 1.06 billion. The international trade was dominated by only a few countries: 80% of the worldwide imports were channeled to just 12 countries. Three international trade centers for botanicals could be recognized: the USA for North and South America, Hong Kong for Asia, and Germany for intra-European trade. Europe was responsible for one third of the annual global imports. Germany accounted for 12% of the total, and four other EU countries (France, Italy, the Unit United Kingdom and Spain) were among the major importers. In these countries, the raw material was mainly processed in each country's industry, and then sold as finished products either on the domestic market or exported (CBI market survey 2008;FAO, 2004). The leading suppliers were Germany, Poland, China and the USA.

Objectives
1. To identify the cost and revenue of Citronella grass (Cymbopogon winterianus). 2. To provide information on cost and revenue of Citronella grass (Cymbopogon winterianus).

Description of study area
The analysis was conducted at Wondo Genet agricultural Research Center which is one of the centers of Ethiopian institute of agricultural research and is found in SNNPRS, in Sidama zone wondo genet woreda. It is located about 268km south of Addis Ababa and 14 km south east of Shashemene. Its geographical location and altitude ranges from 38

Methodology of the analysis
The study was conducted at Wondo Genet Agricultural Research Center (WGARC), Southern Nations, Nationalities and peoples region, Ethiopia in the Aromatic and Medicinal plants experimental field. Planting material used in the study was slip of citronella grass. To determine the production cost and benefit that would be obtained; the amount of labor cost for land clearing, plowing, watering and harvesting operations and cost of fertilizer and other material costs were recorded. In addition to this, yields per each harvest and overall total yields were recorded.

Data analysis
The data was analyzed by using simple cost accounting method. This analysis considers costs incurred and returns obtained during the economic life of the plant production. The analysis will help us to examine the economic contribution of Citronella grass (Cymbopogon winterianus). For this analysis net return to land (birr/ha), Net Present Value (NPV) and Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) was used for analysis (Guta et al., 2018). To calculate total revenue (TR), total cost (TC), net present value (NPV), and Benefit cost ratio (BCR) the following formulas were used: Total revenue (TR) TR=Q*P (i) Where: TR: Total Revenue Q: Total quantity of fresh herb in kg P: Selling price per kg of fresh herb Total cost (TVC) TC= PC+MC+ CP+LC (ii) Where: TVC= Total Variable cost PC= Plowing cost/first cost of plowing and harrowing MC= planting material cost CP= Land cleaning and leveling and cost of planting LC= Labor costs (labor cost of operation: watering, weeding and hoeing and harvesting). NR=TR-TC (iii) Where: NR: Net return TR and TC are total revenue and total cost of production Net Present Value (NPV) Net present value is simply the present worth of the cash flow stream.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The fresh biomass yield of Citronella grass per hectare harvested for three (3)  As indicated above, the bio mass of Citronella grass fluctuates i.e. it increases till 3rd harvest and decreases in the 4 th harvest and again increases in the 5 th harvest. The first harvesting time after planting for Citronella/Nardos grass was 3 months and the rest consecutive harvests were made after 2 months.

CONCLUSIONS
Even if the price of this aromatic grass is not set by the market, at the current price production of aromatic and medicinal plant is profitable. The major production cost for this aromatic grass is weeding and hoeing but it may vary from place to place. Journal of Natural Sciences Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3186 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0921 (Online) Vol.10, No.8, 2020 41 Though this aromatic grass is profitable, it may doesn't mean that it is economically viable. Because it is too difficult to study profitability comparison between this selected aromatic grass and major crops grown in the surrounding districts (i.e., wondo and wondo genet) because of price dynamism for those major crops due to their market existence.