> But then what? Presumably you could use techniques for discouraging pests we (the public) understand better. You can do this for any class of substance, thou

> But then what? Presumably you could use techniques for discouraging pests we (the public) understand better. You can do this for any class of substance, though this isn't always possible (e.g. good luck replacing cancer medications with something over the counter). We've been farming for thousands of years; it's a little ridiculous to suggest there's no alternative to a chemical developed in the last century. Hell, just off the top of my head you can spray the plants with narrowly-targeted substances that are known to be human safe specifically tested against pollinators (e.g. you might use capsacin to discourage mammal consumption). You could also use natural predators to groom the crops. This is a well-documented and ancient technique, although I'm sure it's much more difficult to scale and has a lot of externalities. I.e. lean into the existing ecological web rather than trying to make our own emaciated one which evidently isn't self sufficient. And maybe we just use too many pesticides—we certainly produce far more food than we consume, even if we're not great at distributing it, perhaps taking some loss in the short term will prevent a catastrophic loss in the long term (I know, literally unimaginable to quarterly-oriented individuals). Ultimately, without some known alternative there's not much you can do aside from calling your representative to complain that we need our agencies to be more skeptical and to mandate making the production process public.