This article explores biotechnology and its environmental impacts, health effects, and corporate dominance. Genetically modified (GM) crops, such as soybeans, corn, and rapeseed, are sold worldwide by Monsanto and other large companies. Their main characteristics are herbicide resistance and pest resistance. While weeds are killed, herbicide-resistant GM plants flourish. Thus, even if pesticide use diminishes, the residual volume of herbicide increases. Governments are, therefore, forced to deregulate the residual standards for herbicides when herbicide-resistant GM plants are approved. So-called Roundup Ready GM plants increase consumer intake of glyphosate (the most well-known herbicide), which is carcinogenic as well as has other health effects. In Córdoba, Argentina, where the incidence of cancer has been increasing in GM crop areas, researchers consider glyphosate to be one possible cause.

Monsanto has been making improper use of intellectual property rights; for example, the company pursues compensatory damages when the wind or insects carry GM pollen to nearby locations, often resulting in the bankruptcy of American and Canadian farmers.

The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has expanded the export and import of GM plants. Pollen from GM plants is polluting wild and older races of corn in Mexico.

Monsanto’s GM cotton is driving the extinction of traditional (non-GM) cotton breeds, causing seed prices to increase. This situation has perhaps contributed to the increasing suicide rate among Indian peasants, as shown in the book and movie by Marie-Monique Robin.

Dominant companies and their agents harass important and independent researchers such as Dr. Ignacio Chapela.

A new generation of biotechnology known as genome editing has come into the spotlight in the fields of medicine and agriculture; however, there are problems such as difficulty finding off-target mutations.