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Ronnie H.'s avatar

Funny we talked about this exact topic back in the 80’s!! while doing the night shift at a data center facility when we had spare time along with many other topics. All I can say to you is be aware and try to eat and buy organic food wear and when ever possible. Along with soaps shampoos clothes and everything in between. It has to be a mass movement to eliminate these pesticides from our society. After all companies want the profit. Money comes at any cost including your health

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VJ's avatar

You make a good point that all farming was organic throughout human history up until the mid 20th century. That alone counters some of the arguments I've read that organic farming is somehow a new (green) fad that's not sustainable. Of course overcoming huge inertia with subsidies and infrastructure built around conventional farming is a huge hurdle. Well, one incentive a country without oil may think about is self sufficiency since unless that country produces its own petrochemicals from its own oil then, it has to completely rely on external resources. But this isn't a sudden switch you can do when government and the agriculture industry there is built around conventional / industrial farming. It may never be accomplished fully and I think that's OK, as long as there is sufficient choice. The issue is discussed by RFK Jr echoing Vandana Shiva's work on the Unherd interview here: https://youtu.be/AY89a_zXi9s?t=1455 (a longer form discussion on the topic is on RFK Jr's own podcast)

Regarding organic biopesticides, I wouldn't worry about those at all. Most of them are already in the plants we eat and/or have been used traditionally before chemical pesticides/fungicides. For example, potassium bicarbonate--essentially baking soda with K instead of Na--and likewise potassium carbonate, is a mold and mildew inhibitor, someting you can put in a solution for washing and spraying, and is used as an alkalizing agent in food making, from chocolate to wine, to noodles, and was originally used in baking before sodium bicarnate replaced it. All plant essential oils are natural insect repellents and insecticides, peppermint oil, limonene from citrus peels -- which not only can be used as a cleaning agent, but something we can consume--eucalyptus oil, etc. Even compounds we now identify has having significant health benefits, for our livers, detoxing, and anti-cancer from cruciferous vegetables--the glucoraphanin and myrosinase, which combined produces sulforophane, that's released when you bite into the raw veg giving it that pungent taste--are actually plant defenses against insects. Heck, chili peppers are whole biopesticide bombs!

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