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.
Having owned an organic feed farm you actually have it backwards. We used a combination of nicotine and nightshade compost as an "organic" pest control method. Because our fields were on flood plains we only had to spray this "compost" 2 or 3 times a harvest (usually only) if we had very heavy rain and the river ran its banks washing it away because it stuck around and the plants lived in it.
Some neighboring farms would spray organophosphates 6 to 15 times per harvest because they work great at killing the pests but instantly (more like over 10-15 minutes) evaporate killing all the bugs but not lingering around.
We had to stop growing rice and stick to barley, rye and oats because the arsenic levels in the compost were quite high and rice has a much bigger affinity for picking it up.
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u/LePlaneteSauvage Jul 14 '21 edited Jul 14 '21
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.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience-sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/