We may be able to support our current population without pesticides (I don't know, I'm not really that immersed in the economics of it), but not without backsliding on the advances we've made against global poverty.
I think this is too pessimistic. If governments would stop messing around with subsidizing certain crops at the expense of others (not to mention so many third world governments cashing in on aid without any of it even getting to their people at all), food prices could be considerably cheaper than they are, even with pesticide-free farming methods. The main reasons for poverty today are political, not technical.
"We don't need known, existing solution X if we solve the incredibly complex and old-as-time problem Y" isn't really a compelling argument. Like, I oppose food subsidies as much as anyone, but 1) I'm not under any illusion that they're going away, and 2) I'm not sure how eliminating them would change the underlying utility that pesticides have.
> I'm not under any illusion that they're going away
They never will if everyone has that attitude. I agree they aren't going to be made to go away instantly; but I don't think they're an "old-as-time problem" either.
> I'm not sure how eliminating them would change the underlying utility that pesticides have.
Eliminating food subsidies would improve things whether pesticides are used or not. They're orthogonal issues.
Of course, a pesticide-free market could exist alongside the status quo. The question is how much more expensive it would be. Mounting revelations like TFA are what drive demand for that.
However, I think consumer confusion is the main challenge for such a market. How many people already think buying organic = no pesticides? Or they see your pesticide-free marketing and think "my bases are already covered: I shop at Trader Joe's."
There are lots of examples of intensive farming in e.g. greenhouses and vertical farms that don't involve pesticides. That's in addition to loads of traditional farmers converting to organic farming and managing decent yields as well. So plenty of proof that it can be done and that it is being done. Whether it scales is more a technical challenge than a scientific question IMHO.
The real problem in farming is not cost but the fact that there are a lot of middlemen taking all the profits. Here in Europe, supermarkets sell produce for vastly more than the farmers ever see. I'm sure the same is true in the US. I'm guessing this is a huge factor in some farmers choosing to go for more lucrative organically farmed crops over the capital intensive traditional way of farming one of few staples using GMO seeds, lots of fertilizer, pesticides, etc. Supermarkets seem to love selling organic foods at twice the price. I doubt that the cost is anywhere near a factor 2.
> The real problem in farming is not cost but the fact that there are a lot of middlemen taking all the profits.
No, that's not the problem. The problem (if you view it as a problem) is that food is now produced very far away from where it is consumed, which means that the process of getting the food to the people who are eating it is now much more complicated and requires much more work. When you buy food at the supermarket, you are not just paying the people who farmed it; you are paying the people who got it all the way from the farm to the supermarket, which, these days, could well be a trip halfway around the world. There are indeed plenty of middlemen in this process, but they are adding value since food on a farm hundreds or thousands of miles from the consumer is no good to the consumer.
(This is not to say that there isn't corruption in the food distribution process; there certainly is. I mentioned government issues in another post in this thread.)
The difference is between the known interaction of chemicals that have existed for a considerable time as an agricultural product and synthetic chemicals that have unknown interactions.
Organic pesticides and their interactions aren't that well known... hell, all around the interactions of most of the foods people eat, gene expressions and even gut flora leave most data almost meaningless.
Eat food you make from mostly whole sources, avoid sugars (especially refined), avoid grains (especially refined), avoid refined seed/vegetable oils... do those things and you're still doing better than most of the population, even if your veg and meat aren't completely clean.
Toxicity and microbial selectivity are not the same. Whole food's positive biotic selectivity benefits could be negated by toxins present. I'm not really sure what "doing better" means bc it depends on the individual. Less likely to have endocrine disruption? Cancer risk? Better cardiovascular health? The optimal diet depends on your risk profile.
Take any 10 people and give them trace amounts of X (whatever X is) over the course of 5 years... they won't respond the same. Some will go through it easier than other. Some may have allergic response, others won't.
As for the general advice to avoid sugars, grains and seed oils. These are all things whose consumption correlates the most to increases in heart attacks, obesity, dementia and many related diseases. They are absolutely not required for anyone and for most of the population consumed in quantities that cannot be justified as healthy or safe.
Eating lots more vegetables (in scale and variety) and some more fruits (keeping sugar manageable) generally corresponds to better health. Regardless of other macro nutrition (though I feel that meat, eggs and fish are fine). "OPTIMAL" historically speaking has mostly come down to cost and availability. Optimal for man, in general comes down to what could be raised, gathered, hunted or foraged relatively locally. That would include regular periods without food, and a few in excess.