'The living Pharmacy.'
- An Overview
The neem (Azadirachta indica) is a tropical evergreen related to the mahogany, a native of East India and Burma. It can reach heights of fifty feet, and its single tap root and extensive secondary root system burrow deep enough into the earth to allow it to derive nutrients from soil uninhabitable to other plants. It is best suited to semi-arid conditions; it can, however, grow on as little as 18 inches of rainfall per year. It will generally start to flower and produce seeds at three to five years of age, and its lifespan is reported at roughly two hundred years.
Additionally, mature trees show a resilience to mild freeze; for this reason they can be safely planted in the southern coastal sections of the United States: California as far north as San Francisco and on the East Coast up to central Florida. Establishment also ranges to tropical sections of Asia as well as in the Carribbean and South America.
Importance
The peope of India have long revered the neem tree as a miraculous plant and employed the resources within it to stave away a formidable repertoire of diseases and other ailments. It is honored colloquially in these circles as 'the village pharmacy;' millions with exposure to the tree brush their teeth with its twigs, use its juice on their skin disorders and place its leaves throughout their homes to keep away insects. It seems to work, and research conducted in the past twenty years is telling us exactly why: nearly every part of the neem tree apparently contains potent medicinal properties as well as a myriad of other uses. Although most of the evidence gathered in regards to the tree's properties has been exploratory rather than through controlled experiments, the tree is by most of those exposed still regarded, or expected to become definitively, a miracle plant.
The neem's strengths lend themselves best to the fields of medicine and pest management, and the following is a brief overview of some of its more common uses1:
- The structure of the root brings water up from deep under the surface of the earth. The water helps in erosion and improves the quality of the topsoil which would otherwise be unworkable.
- Commonly, resin tapped from the bark is used as a glue.
- Neem timber is supposedly insect- and rot- repellent and its branches make good firewood.
- As mentioned above, many brush their teeth with the twigs. This is shown to protect against disease.
- Paste made from the leaves is used to heal skin lesions. Additionally, small quantities of the leaves mixed with the food of livestock seems to reduce parasites.
- The neem can annually produce over a hundred pounds (about 50 kilograms) of an edible, olive-like fruit that can be refined into an antiseptic soap.
- The seed contains an ingredient that acts as a pesticide, fungicide, and insecticide. Its oil is clean-burning and safe, and the residue that comes from pressing it is an excellent fertilizer.
Then what's holding it back?
As before mentioned, much of the hype surrounding the neem tree (a better phrase would actually be 'meager publication' - I'll get into that shortly) is based upon evidence that is largely tentative in nature. This is partially due to genetics: neem trees planted worldwide are genetically distinct, causing potential differences in data collected from each individual specimen. It is therefore likely that prowess as an asset to humanity varies within the species. Accordingly, standards of potency certainly required for use in developed medicine and other industries have not yet been determined.
And then there's the generalized obscurity. Most simply do not know about the tree's existence; and still others are (admittedly with good reason) incredulous of its supposed merits. Its uniqueness simultaneously makes it a wonder plant and repels mainstream appreciation. Furthermore, its station as a somewhat specialized object of nature (i.e. finite in supply, limited in habitat) hinders most aspirations for a mass-produced medicine/pesticide/etc. from its resources. Also, evidence suggests that the neem's strength falters in dry conditions, becoming erratic in growth and suceptible to parasites. This principle holds true to a degree with the substances extracted as well: exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays will typically void the potency of the extracts in roughly 8 days.
It all just seems too unstable.
1 The supposed human uses and functions of this tree are incredibly extensive. To include them all in a single writeup would result in a near unendurable mass of sales-pitch-y, uh, hype. For further reading I recommend having a look through the sources documented below. And there are always other noders.
- http://www.theneemtree.com/
- http://www.neemfoundation.org/
- http://www.plasmaneem.com/about.htm
- http://www.indoneem.com/html/neemtree/
- http://www.neeminc.com/
| 
