[strainer]

There is generally only one organic certification program per country, in the US it is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture [0] - which also administrates most standard regulations. Of course, no organically certified products are exempt from any standard regulations - the organic regulations exist in addition to general standards.

[0]https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/organic-certification/beco...

[gruez]

I took a quick skim of the "farmers guide" https://web.archive.org/web/20170217143321/https://www.ams.u...

and couldn't find anything saying you can't "spray as much pesticides you want", only that you can only spray certain pesticides. can you provide a link to the regulation preventing unlimited usage of allowed organic pesticides?

[strainer]

"they can spray as much pesticides as they want" equates substances with pesticidal properties like pepper with the likes of glyposate and chlorpyrifos products. It was a deceptively simplistic statement from the get go, which you should put aside.

Where there may be substances used for pest control which are not limited by organic certification or EPA or USDA general standards, those substances will almost certainly be ubiquitous in nature with zero conceivable impact on health and environment.

Organic standards most contentious pesticide is perhaps Copper sulphate, which has potential to taint soil biology.

Here is description of its controls and others.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/04/2018-06...

"Copper Sulfate—for use as an algicide in aquatic rice systems, is limited to one application per field during any 24-month period. Application rates are limited to those which do not increase baseline soil test values for copper over a timeframe agreed upon by the producer and accredited certifying agent."