Analysis of Medicinal Plants and Senna Leaves in Kayattar Block of Tuticorin District

Abstract

Medicinal plants are gaining prominence and promoted for commercial cultivation in India in order to meet the cumulative demand within the national and export markets.The present paper discusses the development and export of medicinal plants and senna leaves in Kayattar block of Tuticorin District.The present study is based on both primary and secondary data. The primary data relates to the month of December 2017.Secondary source of information are collected from the annual reports of the department of agriculture, Tamilnadu, books, journals and websites. Percentage analysis, averages, trend coefficient, compound growth rate, ranking method and standard deviation were used for the analysis.It is revealed that among the respondents, 18% of farmers had at least 5 years of farming experience and 69% had 10 years of experience in growing medicinal plants and senna leaves. 9% of respondents have cultivated the medicinal plants and senna leaves for a period of 10 to 15 years.  Only 4% of the sample have cultivated for more than 15 years.  Table supplementary shows that a considerablenumber of the farmers are married. They constitute 84 per cent of the sample and the rest 16 per cent are unmarried.It is inferred that most of the sample farmers attributed the reason of high income for the choice of medicinal plants and senna leaves cultivation was ranked first followed by less investment.  Drought tolerant crop were ranked third, less conservation ranked fourth and own interest for the reason of groundnut cultivation ranked fifth respectively.  It shows a positive trend in the quantum of exports of medicinal plants and senna leaves in Tuticorin district. The trend is positive and significant at 5 per cent level. The trend coefficientis 0.069 and 0.076 for medicinal plants and senna leaves respectively.The export of medicinal plants and senna is growing at a compounded rate of 7.81 per cent per annum and 9.04 per cent per annum respectively.It is obvious that cultivation of medicinal plants and sennawas extremely profitable in the study area. As the crop is cultivated as a rainfed crop in the study area and the crop is a drought tolerant one, it can withstand drought conditions up to a certain level.