Criminalizing Sustainability: How Corporate Power Outlawed Nature

From DuPont’s war on hemp to Monsanto’s patented seeds, the real battle isn’t left vs. right, it’s us vs. the oligarchy.

The dominant political narrative today urges us to pick a side: left vs. right, red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative. But beneath the noise lies a far older and more insidious battle: oligarchy vs. democracy, monopoly vs. sovereignty, corporate power vs. the people. To understand how we arrived at a world where billionaires shape policy and corporations dictate what we eat, we must return to the soil, literally. We must examine the chemical giants who rewrote the rules of agriculture, silenced nature’s gifts, and trapped farmers in a cycle of debt and dependency. This is the story of DuPont, Monsanto, and the war on hemp.

Hemp is almost a miracle plant. It grows quickly, often reaching maturity in just three to four months, requires minimal water, and is naturally resistant to most pests. It sequesters more carbon dioxide per acre than most forests and actively replenishes soil health by restoring nutrients and preventing erosion. Hemp can be turned into biodegradable plastics, textiles, paper, biofuel, building materials, food, and even medicine. According to a 2020 study published in Scientific Reports, hemp can absorb up to 15 tons of CO₂ per hectare, significantly more than most commercial forestry. Other peer-reviewed research from Cambridge University has identified hemp as one of the most promising carbon-negative raw materials available, making it a key player in addressing climate change. It offers a blueprint for regenerative industry and climate resilience, if only it were allowed to flourish.

In the early 20th century, hemp was poised to become a cornerstone of a sustainable future. It could be grown virtually anywhere, required little pesticide, replenished the soil, and could produce textiles, food, paper, and even biofuel. But in 1937, hemp was effectively outlawed in the United States under the Marihuana Tax Act, a move cloaked in moral panic but rooted in profit.

At the heart of the campaign was DuPont, which had recently patented nylon, a synthetic fiber that stood to be undercut by cheap, renewable hemp. Alongside timber baron and media mogul William Randolph Hearst, DuPont lobbied to demonize hemp, conflating it with its psychoactive cousin, marijuana. Hearst’s newspapers ran racist, fear-mongering headlines about cannabis, while Harry Anslinger, head of the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics, supplied the moral outrage. Together, they crafted a narrative that positioned hemp as a societal scourge, justifying its eradication. In truth, this was the kind of calculated corporate sabotage that defines what many today call an 'evil corp', a term that fits DuPont and its allies like a glove.

The real crime wasn’t hemp’s imagined dangers. It was that it threatened petrochemical profits and the rise of synthetics. In banning hemp, the U.S. government didn’t just criminalize a plant; it criminalized a way of life and kneecapped a path to sustainable industry.

Decades later, Monsanto, originally a chemical company like DuPont, would pick up the baton in the corporate conquest of agriculture. Its early claims to infamy included the production of PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange, chemicals that left legacies of environmental and human harm. But it was Monsanto’s foray into biotechnology that cemented its grip on the global food system, earning it a notorious reputation as the archetype of an 'evil corp' in the public imagination.

With the invention of genetically modified crops like Roundup Ready corn and soy, Monsanto sold farmers a chemical package: patented seeds that could survive glyphosate, the company’s bestselling herbicide. But there was a catch: farmers couldn’t save seeds. Every planting season meant buying new ones, locking them into a cycle of dependency enforced by aggressive legal action against anyone who tried to save or share seeds, even if their fields were contaminated by windblown pollen.

In India, Monsanto’s Bt cotton was marketed as a miracle. It ended in tragedy. Farmers, seduced by promises of higher yields, went into debt to buy expensive GM seeds and the required pesticides. When crops failed or pests adapted, many faced ruin. In regions like Vidarbha, thousands took their own lives, often by ingesting the very pesticides they were sold, rather than face the debt, shame, and perceived dishonor of financial enslavement by biotech giants like Monsanto. The seed of profit had been sown, but the harvest was despair.

Amid this crisis, grassroots resistance emerged. One of the most influential movements was Navdanya, founded in 1987 by Indian scholar and environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. Navdanya, meaning 'nine seeds' arose as a direct response to the devastation wrought by industrial agriculture and seed monopolies. Its mission is to protect biodiversity, promote organic farming, and reclaim seed sovereignty for farmers. Navdanya has helped establish seed banks across India, trained tens of thousands of farmers in agroecological practices, and resisted the patenting of life forms by multinational corporations. At its heart, Navdanya is both a sanctuary for indigenous wisdom and a rebellion against the commodification of life itself.

Today, the names have changed, Monsanto is now part of Bayer; DuPont has merged into a chemical colossus with Dow, but the game remains the same. Greenwashed slogans like "climate-smart agriculture" mask continued reliance on monocultures, synthetic inputs, and corporate control. Meanwhile, independent farmers struggle to compete, and seed diversity is vanishing.

The consequences are everywhere: dead zones in our oceans, collapsing pollinator populations, antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and a food system designed for extraction, not nourishment. And yet, these are not the inevitable results of modernity, they are the fruits of deliberate policy, manufactured consent, and suppressed alternatives.

This history reinforces a vital truth: our struggle is not against our neighbors with different yard signs. It’s against the small handful of entities that have captured the means of production, corrupted our institutions, and erased community wisdom in favor of scalable profit.

Reviving local, regenerative agriculture isn’t just an ecological necessity, it’s a revolutionary act. Saving seeds, growing hemp, composting, and supporting small farms are steps toward reclaiming autonomy. In the face of corporate consolidation, we are planting the seeds of liberation.

The question isn’t whether we’ll return to the land. It’s whether we’ll do so in chains, or with our hands in the soil, free.

True sustainability in the United States has effectively been made illegal. From the criminalization of hemp to the patenting of seeds, from the suppression of composting to the zoning laws that block front-yard gardens, any model of agriculture that threatens corporate profit is met with regulatory hostility. What should be the birthright of every community, the ability to grow food, save seeds, and steward the land, has been transformed into a battleground of permits, patents, and prosecutions. This is sabotage, not oversight, deliberate corporate sabotage with only one motive in mind: greed.

Yet in the cracks of this corporate-dominated system, local resistance is blooming. Across the United States and beyond, movements like Food Not Lawns are reclaiming suburban spaces for nourishment, converting ornamental turf into productive food gardens. Community gardens, once considered quaint side projects, have become vital lifelines—especially in urban food deserts. They foster resilience, connection, and education, offering a counter-model to industrial agriculture that is rooted in mutual aid rather than extraction.

These decentralized initiatives empower people to take back control over their food, reduce dependency on exploitative supply chains, and create beauty and sustenance in places once ruled by concrete and conformity. They are proof that even under siege, a grassroots revolution is quietly taking root.