Yeah, with various poisons that will mess up some and kill others, and who knows what are long term consequences on genome. Not that great of an achievement if you ask me, since we know better, but its not as price efficient.

You say that like the health effects of pesticides are anywhere on the same scale as "starving to death".

Its not binary, it never was. West throw absurd amount of food away. West is getting progressively fatter with US firmly leading (I'd presume due to food lobbying getting extremely powerful there earlier than elsewhere and realizing for some breadcrumbs you can pass literally anything, like sugar is healthy).

I am not saying not use anything. But have long term studies paid by producers of said things (with oversight of government) and then let it on your crops. Currently its exact opposite and government reacts after SHTF, utter stupidity if you care about more than just immediate profits.