Neem in Sustainable Agriculture

Neem is a versatile tree of Indian origin. Since ancient times, its various plant parts have been used to control domestic insects, stored grain pests, crop pests and human and livestock medicine. Recently, these properties have been attributed to hundreds of chemicals present in this golden tree. Being a storehouse of chemicals, with multiple uses and adaptability to diverse habitats and climatic conditions, the developed countries have been shown keen interest in this tree. Besides, the present day pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers pose several problems viz., environmental pollution and related health hazards in human and livestock, development of resistance in organisms to pesticides and death of beneficial insects. While neem chemicals have shown potential as pesticides and as nitrification inhibitors and do not pose these problems; moreover, neemcake is used as manure. Therefore, keeping in view the importance of this tree, a session of Neem in Current Context was held at the International Symposium on Allelopathy in Sustainable Agriculture, Forestry and Environment, New Delhi during September 6-8, 1994. There were 20 presentations on neem, during this conference. Keeping in view the keen interest of participants, it was decided to bring out a separate book based on updated world literature which would include the presentations made at the symposium as well as a few others, from well known neem researchers. In the last eight years, many books have been published on neem, but this book is unique in following ways : (a) it deals with improving production technology of this wonder tree, (b) it provides current status of neem research in production of agricultural and horticultural crops and (c) the book outlines recommendations on the use of neem and its products in crop production and plant protections. This book will be most useful to neem scientists working in agriculture and forestry and to environmental conscious farmers of developed countries and to the educated farmers of Third World countries intending to practise sustainable agriculture.