Thanks 9YearLurker for reminding me of what should have been my point 4, in post 15, (call it 4a)
4a.Plants produce their own pesticides. These can be powerful and nasty. Actually, one of the main focuses of the research into genetically modified organisms is creating plants that better resist pests. On the flip side, GMOs are created to resist weed killing pesticides (like Roundup).
Yeah, all of your points are correct, but that certainly doesn’t mean that all modern pesticides are safe.
Also, what a number seem to be are hormone disruptors. That’s probably half of what’s turning modern American males into Democrats—with the other half being all the birth control pills in our water supply! ;-)
Creating certain strains of corn or wheat that are resistant to, say, Roundup is probably bad news in a couple of ways. That makes it easier for our seed supply to all be patented, uniform and tightly controlled, and that makes it easier to crank up the level of pesticides used—and the level residue that is in turn to be found on our food supply.
You don’t have to be a liberal to take issues of, yes, necessary pesticides into consideration.
Oh, and in the US at least, there have been pitched battles about the US government classifying foods with various levels of pesticides and such used as ‘organic’. Purists see it as deceptive advertising bought by big agriculture interests.