If you're interested in the subject, I highly recommend Tomorrow's Table [1], a book by Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist and geneticist, and Raoul Adamchak, h

If you're interested in the subject, I highly recommend Tomorrow's Table [1], a book by Pamela Ronald, a plant pathologist and geneticist, and Raoul Adamchak, her husband and an organic farmer (disclaimer: my fiancé works in Pam's lab). The subject of the book isn't pesticides or biodiversity per se, but rather how to produce food sustainably in the face of population growth and climate change. An anecdote from the book: what happens when artificial pesticides aren't used (setting aside the meaning of artificial/natural)? Corn can be sprayed with crystal toxins derived from proteins in the soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), engineered to produce these proteins, or exhibit damage from insects (it looks pretty gross [2]). If you're going to ban pesticides, you need an alternative or will face lower yields. [1] https://cropgeneticsinnovation.ucdavis.edu/book-tomorrows-table https://cropgeneticsinnovation.ucdavis.edu/book-tomorrows-ta... [2] https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/use-and-impact-of-bt-maize-46975413/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/use-and-im...