Lemongrass in Kenya: Market Opportunities, Value Addition and Profitability

Lemongrass is one of those crops that can look deceptively simple from the outside. It is relatively easy to establish, grows vigorously and can be harvested repeatedly. But for a farmer considering commercial production, the more important question is not simply how much lemongrass can be grown. It is who will buy it, in what form, at what price and how consistently?

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) is used as a culinary herb, tea ingredient, flavoring and source of aromatic oil. This gives farmers several possible markets, ranging from fresh leaves and dried lemongrass to processed products and essential oil.

Kenya already has a recognized medicinal and aromatic plants sector, although lemongrass remains a very small crop in official production statistics. The Agriculture and Food Authority’s 2024 Yearbook recorded just 1 hectare and 2 tonnes of lemongrass in 2023, valued at KSh 30,000. This is tiny compared with the country’s overall aromatic-plant sector, which produced 207,127 tonnes worth KSh 14.29 billion that year.

That small official production base can be viewed in two ways. It may indicate an underdeveloped commercial opportunity, but it also means farmers should not assume that a large established market already exists. Market development has to accompany production.

From Fresh Leaves to Essential Oil: Where Is the Opportunity?

Lemongrass has more than one commercial product.

The simplest is fresh lemongrass. Fresh leaves can be sold to consumers, restaurants, hotels, herbal businesses and specialty food outlets. This route requires relatively little processing, but the farmer has to move the crop quickly and maintain acceptable freshness.

Dried lemongrass provides another option. Drying reduces the product’s moisture content and makes it easier to store and transport. Dried leaves can be sold for tea blends, culinary use and herbal products, depending on the buyer’s specifications.

The more specialized opportunity is lemongrass essential oil. The leaves contain aromatic compounds that can be extracted and used in fragrance, cosmetics, personal-care products and other applications. This creates the possibility of selling a higher-value processed product, but it also requires considerably more technical and commercial planning.

A farmer should therefore decide early whether the business is primarily going to produce fresh herb, dried herb or oil-bearing biomass. The production system, harvesting frequency and buyer requirements can differ between these markets.

Kenya’s Lemongrass Market Is Still Small

The official AFA figures are useful because they show just how limited recorded commercial production currently is. Lemongrass accounted for only a tiny fraction of Kenya’s medicinal and aromatic plant production in the 2023 statistics.

This means there is not enough evidence to present lemongrass as a major established Kenyan commodity with a transparent national farm-gate price.

That is an important distinction from crops such as onions or potatoes, where farmers can generally find many traders and relatively active spot markets.

With lemongrass, the commercial farmer may need to develop the market relationship first. A processor, restaurant chain, tea blender, cosmetic manufacturer or essential-oil buyer can potentially provide a more dependable outlet than simply planting and looking for a buyer after harvest.

KALRO’s Kenya Digital Agriculture Platform also emphasizes the importance of market information, including price trends and demand information, when making agricultural decisions.

Fresh Lemongrass Is the Simplest Starting Point

For a smallholder testing the crop, fresh lemongrass can be the easiest product to enter the market with.

The farmer harvests the leaves, cleans and grades them, then supplies the buyer. There is no need for sophisticated processing equipment.

The challenge is perishability and logistics. Fresh leaves contain considerable moisture and are bulky relative to the amount of dry material they contain. A farmer several hours from the buyer may therefore face transport costs that significantly reduce the margin.

This makes proximity to urban markets or an organized collection system important.

Restaurants, hotels, specialty grocery outlets and food businesses can potentially provide useful markets, but their demand may be relatively small compared with the volume produced by a commercial farm.

A farmer should therefore establish the expected weekly or monthly demand before planting a large area.

Dried Lemongrass Opens Another Market

Drying changes the economics of the crop.

Once properly dried, lemongrass becomes less perishable and easier to transport and store. It can also become an ingredient for tea and herbal blends.

However, drying creates its own costs. The farmer needs labor for harvesting and preparation, a suitable drying environment or dryer, clean handling facilities and appropriate packaging.

The product must also be sufficiently dry for safe storage. Poorly dried material can develop mold or lose quality during storage.

For commercial production, drying should therefore be treated as a processing operation rather than simply leaving harvested leaves in the sun.

The buyer should determine the desired moisture level, leaf size, cleanliness and packaging requirements before the farmer invests heavily in the drying system.

Essential Oil Is the Bigger Value-Addition Opportunity

Essential oil is where the economics can become more interesting, but it is also where farmers are most likely to overestimate profitability.

Lemongrass oil is a specialized product. Producing it requires harvesting sufficient biomass and then distilling the plant material using appropriate equipment.

A farmer growing a small acreage may not generate enough biomass to justify owning a distillation unit. A cooperative or aggregation model can make more sense, where several farmers supply a central processing facility.

There is also an important difference between producing oil and selling oil profitably. The processor must achieve acceptable oil quality and consistency, and a buyer must exist for the resulting product.

Kenya already participates in international trade in essential oils and related products, demonstrating that essential oils are an established export category. However, broad essential-oil trade statistics should not be interpreted as evidence of a specific market for Kenyan lemongrass oil.

A farmer interested in this route should therefore identify an actual processor or buyer before establishing a large lemongrass plantation.

What Determines Lemongrass Profitability?

The economics of lemongrass are influenced by several factors, but four stand out: yield, selling price, harvesting frequency and labor cost.

Unlike a crop that is planted once and harvested once, lemongrass can be cut repeatedly after establishment. This can spread establishment costs over multiple harvests.

However, repeated harvesting also means repeated labor. If the crop requires frequent cutting, cleaning, bundling and transportation, labor can become one of the largest operating expenses.

Irrigation can also change the economics significantly. A farmer relying on rainfall may have lower production costs but less control over year-round supply. An irrigated farm may produce more consistently but incur additional water, pumping and equipment costs.

The profitability calculation therefore needs to reflect the actual production system on the farm.

How to Calculate Lemongrass Profit

A farmer should start with marketable output, not the total biomass produced.

The basic calculation is:

Gross revenue = Marketable quantity × actual selling price

Then:

Net profit = Gross revenue − total production, harvesting, processing and marketing costs

For example, assume a farmer eventually sells 5,000 kg of fresh lemongrass during a production period at an illustrative KSh 30 per kilogram.

Gross revenue would be:

5,000 kg × KSh 30 = KSh 150,000

If the farmer spends KSh 75,000 on labor, irrigation, fertilizer, harvesting, packaging and transportation, the remaining KSh 75,000 would be the gross operating margin before other costs such as land, depreciation, financing and management.

The figures above are illustrative only, not a current Kenyan lemongrass price or yield recommendation. The farmer should replace them with actual quotations and production records.

This approach is much safer than using a claimed “profit per acre” from an online farming article.

Why Yield Claims Can Be Misleading

Lemongrass yield is highly dependent on management and how the product is defined.

One farmer may report tonnes of fresh leaves, another may report dried material, while an essential-oil processor may be concerned primarily with the quantity and quality of oil obtained from the biomass.

These are not interchangeable measurements.

A farmer should therefore ask exactly what a published yield figure represents. If someone claims that an acre produces a certain number of tonnes, determine whether that refers to fresh biomass, dried leaves or cumulative production over several harvests.

The difference can completely change the profitability calculation.

The Hidden Cost of Harvesting

Lemongrass is often described as a low-maintenance crop, but that does not mean it is labor-free.

Commercial production involves cutting mature leaves, gathering them, sorting and cleaning the material, transporting it and potentially drying or processing it.

If harvesting is done manually, labor requirements can become significant as the acreage increases.

This is one reason why a farmer should calculate profitability based on cost per kilogram of marketable product, rather than assuming that low establishment costs automatically translate into high profit.

Mechanization may eventually reduce labor requirements on larger farms, but equipment investment only makes sense at sufficient scale.

Who Could Buy Kenyan Lemongrass?

Potential markets include restaurants, hotels, tea blenders, herbal-product businesses, spice companies, fresh produce distributors, cosmetic manufacturers and essential-oil processors.

The most suitable market depends on the form of the product.

A restaurant may want small quantities of fresh leaves. A tea processor may want dried material with consistent aroma and cleanliness. An essential-oil processor may need much larger quantities of biomass delivered according to a processing schedule.

These buyers should not be treated as interchangeable.

Before planting, farmers should ask potential buyers what quantity they require, how frequently they purchase, the preferred form of the product, quality specifications, packaging requirements and payment terms.

Can Lemongrass Be Exported?

There are opportunities in international markets for herbs, spices and essential oils, but export should be treated as a specialized business rather than an automatic destination for any surplus.

Export buyers generally require consistency, traceability, appropriate packaging and compliance with food-safety or phytosanitary requirements where applicable.

The biggest mistake would be to plant lemongrass on the assumption that an international buyer will automatically purchase it at a premium price.

A much stronger model is to identify the buyer first and then work backward from the buyer’s specifications to determine the required production volume and quality.

Fresh Herb vs Dried Herb vs Oil

This is why there is no single answer to whether lemongrass is profitable.

A farmer selling fresh leaves to a local buyer is operating a very different business from a cooperative producing essential oil for an industrial customer.

Is Lemongrass a Good Crop for Smallholder Farmers?

It can be, particularly when the farmer has access to a nearby market and can use irrigation or reliable rainfall to maintain production.

Its perennial nature can also make it attractive because the farmer does not have to establish the crop from scratch every season.

But smallholders should avoid planting large areas simply because lemongrass appears easy to grow.

A small pilot plot can answer important questions: Does the crop perform well on the farm? How much labor is needed to harvest it? How frequently can it be harvested? How much product does the buyer actually take? What price is received after transport?

Those answers are far more valuable than a generic profitability figure.

What Could Make Lemongrass More Profitable?

The biggest opportunity is usually aggregation and value addition.

Individual farmers may struggle to supply enough biomass to an industrial processor. Organized groups can aggregate production and provide more consistent volumes.

Similarly, farmers can potentially capture additional value through drying, packaging or processing rather than selling all production as raw fresh leaves.

However, value addition should be driven by demand. There is little benefit in processing a product that cannot be sold.

A farmer should first identify the customer, then determine the product specification, then calculate whether processing creates enough additional margin to justify the investment.

The Risks Behind the Opportunity

The first major risk is market size. Kenya’s official statistics show that recorded lemongrass production remains extremely small, so farmers should not assume there is a large commodity market waiting for new producers.

The second is price uncertainty. Unlike major crops with extensive market reporting, there is limited publicly available Kenyan price data specific to lemongrass.

The third is processing risk. Essential-oil production requires technical knowledge and equipment, while dried products require proper hygiene and moisture control.

The fourth is overproduction. If many farmers plant based on the same attractive market story without corresponding growth in demand, prices can fall.

The safest approach is therefore market-led expansion, not acreage-led expansion.

A Practical Way to Enter the Business

A farmer interested in commercial lemongrass can begin with a manageable area and establish a relationship with one or more potential buyers.

Keep records from the first harvest. Record labor hours, fresh biomass harvested, rejected material, transport costs, selling price and the amount of time between harvests.

If the crop is being dried, record the fresh weight and final dried weight. This establishes the farm’s actual fresh-to-dry conversion rather than relying on assumptions.

If the long-term plan is essential oil, determine the quantity of biomass required by the processor and the expected oil yield under the chosen production system before purchasing processing equipment.

After one production cycle, the farmer will have a much stronger basis for deciding whether to expand.

So, Is Lemongrass Profitable in Kenya?

It can be, but the strongest opportunity is not simply growing more lemongrass. It is producing the right form of lemongrass for a known market.

Kenya’s official statistics show that lemongrass production is currently very small relative to the wider aromatic-plant sector. That means there may be room for specialized producers, but it also means that farmers cannot depend on a mature, transparent commodity market.

For a smallholder, fresh or dried lemongrass may be the most practical starting point. For organized producers with sufficient acreage and a confirmed buyer, essential-oil production and other forms of value addition could provide a more ambitious route.

The most important financial calculation is therefore not “How much can I make from an acre of lemongrass?” but rather:

“How much will it cost me to produce one kilogram of marketable lemongrass, who will buy it, and what will they actually pay me?”

Answer that question before planting at scale, and the crop becomes a business decision rather than a gamble.

Farmers seeking quality planting materials and expert guidance can visit our website on www.organicfarm.co.ke, Call or WhatsApp: +254712075915, or email: oxfarmorganic@gmail.com.