https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/06/08/why-is-monsanto-the-most-hated-company-in-the-worl.aspx

What is GMO?

You probably know something about GMOs, which stands for genetically modified organisms. The popular definition of a GMO is (according to Wikipedia) “an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques.” But that’s not why everyone’s afraid of Monsanto. Monsanto is scary because — in the eyes of detractors — it’s compressing 10,000 years of genetic adaptations into 10 years of mad science.

The history of commercialized GMO foods as we now know them began just two decades ago, with an “enhanced” tomato that was so unprofitable to produce that its developer wound up selling itself to Monsanto. Since then, other developments have embedded GMOs into a rather substantial part of the world’s food supply.

Total global cropland, by comparison, amounts to roughly 1.5 billion hectares, so GMOs now take up more than 11% of all cropland in the world. ISAAA — the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, a pro-GMO nonprofit supported in part by Monsanto’s funding — says that GMOs have made 100-fold gains in terms of planted cropland since 1996. The United States, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and India comprise the lion’s share of GMO cropland, as more than 152 million of the world’s 170 million GMO hectares are found in those five countries.

All of this adds up to big business. The six largest seed-and-weed companies — which typically pair specially engineered seeds with herbicides that often eliminate any plants not attuned to their unique chemical structure — accounted for close to $50 billion in global sales across their various product lines in 2009.

So we stated what a GMO is (Genetically Modified Organism) but why should we care and is it bad?

GMO in the scope of plants refers to modifying  its genetics. It is taking a piece from something else and putting it into lets say a tomato for a specific purpose. Nowadays this is commercially done in a lab. 

However this can take place naturally and has been done so for many many years through selective planting and growing of crops, but who wants to fuck around with that when we can fast track it in a lab. 

Now here lies the problem, certain GMO crops contain some traits that aren’t really beneficial to the human ecosystem.

What raises concern in some people are the vegetables that produce their own pesticides, there’s a theory that these get in your gut and alter healthy gut bacteria affecting things like your mental health and physical health. GMO foods are created to look perfect and taste perfect with zero actual nutrition. From what I understand, when they engineer the produce to be pest proof, they are stripping out the nutrients because it is the very process of fighting off the bugs that creates said nutrients

Look at the issue that has arisen with Indian farmers. 

To give you a brief rundown of what’s happening in India, Farmers were simply enticed from switching over to their traditional crops to GM seeds, they were promised unbelievable yields and income from adopting this “superior seed”. 

So these farmers borrow money to buy these seeds, the seeds turn out to be duds. No crops grow, no harvest, no yield, no income. They are driven into a debt they can’t pay off,