Exposing Why Farmers Can’t Legally Replant Their Own Seeds

In a fast-paced 47 minutes, this well-sourced and well-executed video by YouTube “science star” Derek Muller at his channel Veritasium presents an overview of herbicide history since WWII and of Monsanto’s mercenary corporate behavior, capturing enough details of company skullduggery to make the eventual emergence of the nickname “MonSatan” understandable.

Using a blend of narration by Veritasium writer/director Gregor Čavlović, animation, historical footage, and interviews with three experts (journalist Carey Gillam, professor Bart Elmore, and researcher Nathan Donley), the video takes viewers through the scientific and corporate trajectory that led to Roundup and “Roundup-Ready” crops, including:

• The patenting of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T—the world’s first “viable” selective herbicides—in 1945. (In the late 1950s, an inquisitive German dermatologist warned that they were contaminated with dioxin, known to be dangerous even in trace amounts, but chemical companies’ stance was, “If the government learns about this, the whole industry will suffer.”)
• The blanketing of South Vietnam with Agent Orange (a 50/50 mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) during the Vietnam War. (Monsanto was the U.S. government’s largest supplier by volume, and its product had much higher dioxin levels than the formulation made by fellow supplier Dow Chemicals.)
• The “miracle” discovery of glyphosate, which became the star ingredient of the blockbuster Roundup. (Though it became evident that “If it’s green, Roundup is going to kill it,” the successful marketing slogan was, “It’s safer than table salt.”)

The video then explains how, in anticipation of glyphosate going off-patent in the year 2000, Monsanto cleverly (and somewhat serendipitously) segued into “Roundup-Ready” crops. Aided by ruthless legal and sales tactics, extensive scientific manipulation, and draconion “technology use agreements,” Monsanto’s agricultural arm became, by the 2010s, “an almost untouchable monopoly.”

Fortunately, the video balances out its stories of Monsanto oppression of farmers and suppression of science with some examples of pushback, including the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC’s) stubborn classification of glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” in 2015 (a pronouncement that apparently infuriated Monsanto) and the heroic litigation led by attorney Brent Wisner, whose release of the “Monsanto Papers” in 2017 helped reveal, according to Monsanto-watcher Carey Gillam, “jaw-dropping” levels of “duplicity and deception.”

In 2021, following its acquisition of Monsanto in 2018, Bayer pledged to remove glyphosate from residential Roundup (but not agricultural or professional use Roundup). Unfortunately, as Friends of the Earth has reported, the new “glyphosate-free” formulations are “45 times more toxic to human health” and “pose significantly more harm to the environment.” Moreover, as of 2024, some consumer Roundup products still contained glyphosate.

Although this video is recent (published on August 31, 2025), it does not discuss Bayer’s current sneaky push for federal and state legislation and EPA action that would shield Bayer (and other pesticide/herbicide manufacturers) from legal liability.

Watch the video HERE.