Farm worker safety is important stuff, on any farm, organic or conventional.

At the small market garden I raise, I don't hire out any work. But even if I did, I'd keep the (very rare) spraying of organic pesticides as work I did myself. And even if I grew beyond that point some day, I would never ask a woman who might be pregnant to spray anything at all.

Your point about the immediate toxicity of certain natural compounds (rotenone and nicotine definitely included) is well-taken. The one difference that seems to hold up though is that synthetic chemicals have a much higher likelihood of persistence, bioaccumulation, and long-term effects on non-target organisms in even trace amounts.

-app