Like the article touched on, there are regenerative practices that do not require pesticides. Frankly, pesticides are a human convenience. Utterly unnecessary for survival. If we weren't focusing on mass producing food, largely unused to directly feed people, we wouldn't need to spray everything with poison to keep things easy and profitable.

Trying to find a "smarter" way to poison things is exactly the status quo and it will lead nowhere good.

I think OP is right suggesting this could be possible. But (my addition) only within scope of deconstructing the entire agriculture system as-is (and was for decades), and replacing it with something else. IMO this will be forced upon us (read: our children) anyhow. So better start early.