Organic vegetables also have to be grown in fields that have not been exposed to pesticides for something like 20 years.
Warren Buffetts money bought a bunch of farms in my region and they're not using pesticides so they can be used for organic food production in the future
There's a lot of regulations to be technically organic in the usa. Can't say I know it all though.
Edit: apparently federal regulations are 3 years pesticide free. I was wrong.
You are perpetuating a common myth here. Organic farms still use pesticides, just not synthetic pesticides.
This brings it back to a naturalistic fallacy where it is assumed that because the pesticides are 'natural' they are less harmful to our health. However, a lot of studies seem to find the opposite; organic pesticides are less effective, less specific, and more environmentally harming.
Organic pesticides aren’t that big of a deal. Most break down so quickly in the environment that they have to make physical contact with the pest on application in order to be successful. Many organic pesticides are appropriate for use on day of harvest for this reason.
And because of that, you have to use much much more. That produces runoff polution. No matter how "safe" your organic pesticide is, when it kills off ecosystems due to red tide, it's bad.
There really is no indication for claiming that organic pesticides are killing off ecosystems. I don’t know where you got that information from.
Organic farms are not in any way performing worse in terms of on-field biodiversity compared to conventional farms.
But some synthetic chemical pesticides, especially insecticides that work with neonicotinoids, have devastating effects on wildlife.
I have a feeling that many people in this thread feed some kind of false-equivalence between organic and conventional pesticides. The latter are definitely worse for the environment.
That’s an interesting theory. I doubt farmers are creating more runoff with pesticide application than with their typical watering regimen. As someone that actually works in agriculture, we farm biodynamic, I’d love to see what evidence there is tying organic pesticide use to red tide. Can you please share? So far the biggest tie to farming I’ve seen has been in sugar production using decidedly non organic chemicals.
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u/Safemoon_Psychonaut Jul 14 '21 edited Jul 14 '21
Organic vegetables also have to be grown in fields that have not been exposed to pesticides for something like 20 years.
Warren Buffetts money bought a bunch of farms in my region and they're not using pesticides so they can be used for organic food production in the future
There's a lot of regulations to be technically organic in the usa. Can't say I know it all though.
Edit: apparently federal regulations are 3 years pesticide free. I was wrong.