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However, I will take anything that brings awareness to possible culprits of why the US has, by far, the worst cancer incidences in the entire world.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-incidence?tab=char...
Seems to correlate with pesticide use by year...
https://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pnsp/usage/maps/show_map.php?ye...
And by location (when accounting for age that increases risk a lot)
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-have-the-highest-...
That’s both a non-sequitor as it doesn’t remotely answer my question, and is one of the purest “appeals to authority” fallacies I’ve seen in the wild recently
Certainly some people in the world suffer from malnutrition and would benefit from more or better food.
Practically though we want to use the practices that give the most yield for a given amount of risk. I am still shaking my head over the time I saw TruGreen Chemlawn spraying all the trees in front of a hotel, many of which are famous for not having pest problems. I guess they had to do something so the customer thinks they are getting something.
in reality there are a lot of factors, if you get your agronomy right you can greatly increase output with limit commercial inputs, see
https://ghgmitigation.irri.org/mitigation-technologies/syste...
It’s possible they were doing a foliar nutrient spray, to keep the trees greener/healthier.
There are also calcium carbonate sprays which act as sun protectants (rather than nutrition), preventing sunburn and helps cool the leaves. Best applied right before a major heat event.
Organic approved pesticides do include harmful chemicals. Things like diatomaceous earth are a potential carcinogen.
Overall we produce way too much food, a lot goes to waste.
In the west everyone is fat as fuck, food quantity is a solved problem.
The answer to why we use pesticides is the same answer as to why we used lead in paint, asbestos everywhere, freon, DDT, &c... profit