Organic vs Conventional Pesticides: What’s the Difference?

If you have never watched a video I posted, this is the perfect time to start and this is the best video for you to see!

Organic farmers use organic pesticides. The next question is simple: What’s the difference?

Check out this video that features farmers that actually farm both conventionally and organically:

See? That’s why I keep telling you – organic is a marketing decision.

My favorite observation in the video is this – many times “synthetic” pesticides are only “synthetic” because of how they were created. This was mentioned in my article with Steve Savage about the little girl’s science experiment gone wrong. In our article, we discussed a new sprout inhibitor for potatoes called SmartBlock. SmartBlock is derived from natural sources – such as yogurt, tuna, soy and, mushrooms – but scientists recreated the exact same thing in the lab. That makes it much easier to collect and use (and, I imagine, cheaper), but prohibits it from being used in organic agriculture. But conventional farmers are starting to use it as an effective tool in prohibiting potatoes from sprouting.

Organic isn’t about whether something is better for the environment or safer – it focuses on this random distinction about whether something is sourced “naturally” or not.

Also interesting, in that same article, we noted that the organic sprout inhibitor was much less effective and had to be sprayed as many as 5-8 times to work. The farmers in the video confirmed that was the case for other organic pesticides as well.