Status report on global Neem usage - Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

3. NEEM AS A NON-SYNTHETIC PESTICIDE
Neem usage on more valuable crops such as fruit, vegetables and other cash crops is
mentioned quite frequently. Such crops usually require a high level of input with regard to
seed, care, fertiliser and irrigation, thus representing an investment that the farmer has to
protect in order to yield the greatest possible profit. What is more, these plants are often very
susceptible to pests and disease.
Question: Where do the farmers get their neem from?
The most frequent responses were that farmers obtained their neem from their own trees or
by collecting it from their local surroundings. Since a lot of projects working with neem were
questioned, a very frequent reply was "neem is provided by the project".
Trade in neem raw materials or products is not very widespread at the moment. Neither the
raw materials nor the commercial neem-based pesticides are traded on a large scale at
present. The lack of such professional and commercial trading practice with neem was also
often named in connection with the next question, namely the reason for its low level of acceptance.
Fig. 3.4: Farmers’ sources of neem, in % of the responses
(multiple answers were possible)
Question: What are the main problems affecting the acceptance of neem?
42
ow n trees
collected from the surrounding
barter transaction
raw material purchased
commercial neem-based pesticide
provided by the project
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
yes in parts no