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America’s supermarkets are awash in genetically modified foods. Over the past decade, biotech companies like Monsanto have dominated dinner tables with crops like corn, soybeans and canola modified to survive lethal doses of herbicides, resulting in increased herbicide use, a surge in herbicide-resistant weeds, and the contamination of organic and conventional crops. According to the Center for Food Safety, more than half of all processed food in U.S. grocery stores-items like cereals, corn dogs and cookies-contain genetically engineered (GE) ingredients.

“This technology is a one-trick pony,” says George Kimbrell, an attorney at the Center for Food Safety. “They don’t help us feed the world, they don’t fight climate change, and they don’t help us better the environment. They just increase pesticides and herbicides. That’s what they do.” (Listen to an interview with George Kimbrell.)

Currently, 85 percent of GE crops are designed to resist herbicides. Compbnies like Syngenta, Bayer and Dow have all created their own herbicide tolerant seeds, modified to withstand the company’s corresponding herbicide treatment. But it’s Monsanto, the world leader in GE seed production, that has benefited the most from biotechnology by packaging its Roundup Ready line of GE seeds with its Roundup herbicide. Monsanto, whose roots began in creating toxic chemical concoctions like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and DDT, is now the world’s leading producer of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide. (See Monsanto’s chemical history timeline.)

But what’s good for Monsanto’s business isn’t so great for people or the environment. That’s why in 2007, Earthjustice, together with the Center for Food Safety, challenged the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to allow Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets on the market, arguing that the agency failed to adequately assess both its environmental and economic impacts.