Monsanto Years

Album: The Monsanto Years (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the title track of The Monsanto Years, a protest album against controversial agricultural company Monsanto and several other corporations. Young, a founder of Farm Aid, has been vocal for some time about his opposition to Monsanto, which is a leading producer of genetically modified seed (GMOs) and the herbicide glyphosate, which it markets under the Roundup brand. However, while the singer is opposed to the agricultural giant as a whole, he says that he's not trying to hurt any individual. "I don't really have anything against the human beings working at Monsanto," Young told Rolling Stone. "But Monsanto is the poster child for the problems we're having with the corporate government."
  • A representative of Monsanto responded to Young's criticism telling Billboard magazine, "Many of us at Monsanto have been and are fans of Neil Young. Unfortunately, for some of us, his current album may fail to reflect our strong beliefs in what we do every day to help make agriculture more sustainable. We recognize there is a lot of misinformation about who we are and what we do - and unfortunately several of those myths seem to be captured in these lyrics."

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