Organic is a buzzword that doesn't mean anything useful. They can't use some chemicals so they substitute others which are often more harmful. Or they destroy the soil because they can't replace the nutrients that they are taking out.
Classic example I saw was Chamomile farming in Egypt. Traditionally done along the Nile. 'Sustainable' in terms of family owned farms for literal millennia, community works projects of maintaining the nile flooding irrigation, etc. Of course there are issues, but the families live close to their fields, kids go to school, they make their own business decisions, don't want to deplete their soil, and there are social frameworks in place for solving collective problems. BUT! Doesn't work for organic: if a neighbor 3 fields up uses pesticides, and a tiny amount blows over onto your field, your crop isn't organic.
No problem! We found an aquifer (fossil, non-renewable) in the middle of the desert, we'll pump up the water and irrigate the ground out there where we're far away from pesky neighbors. Of course this is a big operation, so we need big investment, and thus a big company. Also we need workers, since nobody lives out there. We'll bus them in. They'll need a place to stay, so we'll put them in camps.
After my evening yoga I like to have some warm chamomile tea to wind down before bed. I like this one because it's organic and has a haiku on the inside about how we should take care of the planet.
I suspect the picture does vary somewhat around the world, but in the UK there are eight government approved organisations which are allowed to certify for organic labelling [1] and the EU has something similar[2]. Because the organic logo adds financial value to products, there is a significant interest in protecting its usage. You may disagree with the content of the legislation, but it does mean something.
In any global industry there are going to be outliers and people breaking the rules, but suggesting that organic farming destroys soil and uses more harmful chemicals than non-organic farming as a general rule sounds very much like FUD.
I think the complaint is meant to be "organic doesn't mean anything".
I read GP as saying that while an organic product might be produced responsibly, as your family's farms do, it could also be factory-farmed using pesticides worse than Roundup.
If that is true, then the word "organic" is not meaningful for consumers who want to support sustainable, low-impact farming.
There is certification and regulation required and a fair amount of promises to become USDA organic or even use organic on the label of a food legally in the U.S. So if they were using pesticides they would be engaging in fraud. There is large scale organic farming that is probably not sustainable though and this is likely the source of a lot of organic produce that is not locally sourced, but it also probably doesn't have pesticides on it. O. The other hand fraud does happen and there was a big organic grain trader who was found to be substituting non-organic grain for grain and I think he was prosecuted for it but he got away with it for years. There are also local sustainable farmers who grow organically but can't afford or can't justify the cost of organic certification. So while it does mean something it isn't doesn't always mean what you might think it does.
I'm not sure what the industry standard for something being a "pesticide" is, but there are clearly plenty of tools organic farms can use for pest control. It would be an undertaking to figure out the potential health and sustainability ramifications of all of them (and of course, the label "organic" could encompass the use of any or all of them).
Organic farms use pesticides: They are just limited in what pesticides they use. This isn't a secret or fraud. Unfortunately, the pesticides allowed can easily be worse for the environment than the chemical counterpart. Fertilizers have the same woes, and folks can still not take care of the land.
Crop rotation is a useful technique that both organic and non-organic farms use. However there are lots of other farming techniques. By being organic you are limiting yourself out of them all.
It's a buzzword, but that doesn't mean that what people think of as "organic" - in the good sense - doesn't exist. I'm sure you didn't mean it, but your comment gives the impression that all "organic" food is a shame. There are plenty of sustainable farms that don't use harmful pesticides. It's unfortunate the word has become what it has, but it's not a catch-all one way or the other.
