News from 1st day World Neem Conference
The Neem Industry needed to recognize the importance of continuing research and development in helping it win a viable share of the agricultural pest control market, a senior academician from Australia said on Wednesday.The major challenge for the industry seemed to be to invest in sufficient research to foster the level of innovation to help the industry become the world's leading supplier of consistent quality,environmentally-friendly pest control agents and health care products, Malcolm K Wegener, School of Natural and Rural Systems Management, University of Queensland said. He was speaking as chief guest at the four-day World Neem Conference, which began here, with more than 400 delegates from over 30 countries attending.It would be wise to adopt a level of cooperation among industry players that would allow innovation to progress, while recognising that a healthy element of competition between producers, was an essential part of the development process, Wegener said.Neem-based pest control has a natural advantage in the race to help farmers demonstrate that their production processes were clean and green, he said.However, these pest control products do not act like traditional, synthetic pesticides and would require an enormous extension and promotion effort to change farmers' thinking and give them confidence in bio-control agents with their entirely different mode of action, Wegener said.
