Neem as an industrial crop

Neem has established itself as an industrial crop. The passage from a
disenfranchised tree to an industrial crop was long and still has several bottlenecks.
Neem is a household name in India and is grown in all parts of the country in both
urban as well as rural environment.
What is holding Neem from being an industrial crop? An industrial crop has
acceptability, ready market, standardized procedures for collecting, converting or
developing products from its main extracts or components. Industrial crop has
approvals and standards of regulatory authorities. There are determined attempts to
produce it in large quantities and plans for its sustenance. Usually, there is a major
demand of the product that controls development of the plant as industrial crop.
Jatropha curcas is an example of some of the recent disenfranchised plants being
accepted as an industrial in India. Need for biological diesel substitute lead to
identification of Jatropha curcas. Tens of thousands of land is being covered under
its plantation major networks have started working on its development as industrial
crop.
Neem, on the other hand, did not get the same franchising. These is an agreement that indiscriminate use of synthetic pesticides in
agriculture, horticulture, forestry, animal husbandry and in public health has created havoc and undesirable effects. There is also an
agreement that Neem is a natural source of biological pesticides par excellence, rather there is hardly any other candidate that can provide
natural pesticides of the quality that Neem van provide. This convenience of demand and supply did not facilitate industrialization of Neem.
Often synthetic pesticide lobby is blamed for this debacle. Guayule (Parthenium argentatum) was once cherished as an alternative to
natural rubber. There was an all out effort to industrialize the wild species, yet the efforts failed since scientific and technical limiting factors
could not be solved. Despite a recognized and accepted and product of high quality, guayule could not be commercialized anywhere in the
world except a limited effort in the USA. Neem is at a risk of similar failure.

To al large extent, scientific interventions may be able to provide answers to the limiting factors that are holding various partners of industry
including the users.
People from all sections of society use the plant
in some form or other. The tree, unfortunately, is
taken for granted as it exists all around, is
available when required and there is no criticism
from any NGO or population group against its
cultivation. However, there is no systematic
attempt to improve the tree, adopt or adapt it as
an industrial crop. Even fruit collection remains
unorganized till date. It rarely falls in the list of
probable marketable non forest produce items
of the Forest departments, Forest Corporations
or other similar organizations. In a way, private
entrepreneurship is preferred over state control
management of non forest produce, however it
could not be a profitable enterprise since the
species has not undergone improvements and
standardizations required for an industrial crop.
Neem Oil Pesticide
Neem Oil Industry