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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

The claim in the article is that there's nothing intrinsically safer about the "organic" pesticides. And that just because "organic" labeled pesticides can be found as is in nature doesn't mean they are safer. Many of the "organic" pesticides, copper sulfate, rotenone, and nicicotine sulfate actually require more per unit area farmed while at the same time having a lower LD50 than the other non-organic pesticides.

What do you find is nonsense about this? Did you not read the article and think it was about "pesticides" vs "no pesticides"? It is actually about how the organic label often results in farmers using more pesticides.

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> Many of the "organic" pesticides, copper sulfate, rotenone, and nicicotine sulfate

That's highly misleading:

1. Copper sulfate is required to be used such that copper accumulation is limited in the soil. [1]

2. Rotenone [2][3] and nicotine sulfate [3] are not allowed as USDA Organic pesticides.

Really, superkuh, for a user like you, your comment is embarrassing.

[1] https://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/pesticide-articles/mat...

[2] https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/national-organic-...

[3] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/su...

"Organic means better" is the embarrassing and misleading talking point here though, not being against having toxic chemicals in our food sold as "organic". I don't want added copper compounds and residue in my food, and copper sulfate used in organic farming empirically does that.

"The most frequently quantified [organic] pesticide was copper." https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2015/5570...

This doesn't say that conventional cultures are better on that front.

Your own reference says:

> Analysis of these articles revealed no significant difference in ..., zinc, and copper.

> restrictions limit the use of copper salts.

I see a theoretical risk but not a practical problem here. At best you've identified a place where the regulations might need tightening.

That https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/su... specifically does not allow "(f) Rotenone (CAS # 83-79-4)" and "nicotine sulfate" is a huge red flag. I guess the article writer might be talking of non-US jurisdictions but it does undercut my belief in their statements.

Given these two really bad, even disengenuous, examples the true bit about the copper sulfate use is probably misleading too. I wouldn't say it's embarassing not to know this off the top of my head but I do appreciate that I won't embarass myself in the future by repeating the falsehoods (re: USDA regs). Thanks.

I do wonder how this works with a large amount of the produce I buy in the USA being grown in other countries though.

Except those "organic pesticide" are largely NOT used in modern organic farming, and when they are, they're used at a much lower level than "conventional pesticides"

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