> Without them then fruit would be inaccessible to many people.

This is just a lucky side effect, I'm 100% sure that main goal is for the pesticides industry just take their cut on the producers margin. By growing those margins, sure, but it's not something that should be forgotten.

No, the main goal of the pesticides industry is to supply chemicals that kill of various pests (insects, fungi etc) that would otherwise destroy a significant proportion of the harvest.

Without these pesticides food would be significantly more expensive and less accessible to many people.

I agree that we should talk about moving away from chemical dependent farming but we need to be aware of the full picture in order to avoid glib solutions.

I realize I should have been more nuanced, but you should too. The increase of production is undeniable, I'm not challenging that, and introduction of pesticides in the second half the the 20th century lowered drastically the cost of living of many. But the pesticide industry has become predatory, and their concerns have not been public welfare for a very long time.

Their concerns were never public welfare. They are companies. Their concerns are profit and market share.

I think what you are saying is that they have turned to predatory behaviour in order to grow profits and protect market share.

Your point would have been better made if you had said just that, with examples.

Without pesticides we could create more resistant cultivars.

Without antibiotics we could cultivate more resistant humans. That's probably not a situation anyone wants, pencillin was huge for a reason.

Now looking into alternate forms of resistances while still enjoying modern treatments, theres an idea.

Bad analogy. Cultivating more resistant humans would raise a bunch of ethical questions.

That's the point of the analogy. Use of pesticides in some part allows us to have stable and cheap access to food. There are similar ethical arguments to be had about restricting pesticides.

Most wealthy westerns only see/know abundance. Pesticides, GMOs, these things prevent famine in most of the world.

> Without pesticides we could create more resistant cultivars.

Doesn't follow. We can create them today. Pretty sure farmers would be very happy on not having to dedicate resources to pest control.

It's probably not even feasible long term. Pests can and do adapt. The main problem is monoculture.

Also, those resistant cultivars are probably not going to do so well when it comes to other variables: shelf life, taste, etc.

I think we do both.

Where I live, fruit and vegetable farmers are routinely required to discard significant portions of the harvest per USDA mandates… maybe we could find some middle ground between poisoning people for obscene harvests and allowing pests to decimate crops?