Neil Young
© AP/John ShearerNeil Young
Grammy Award-winning artist Neil Young has been a powerful presence in music for the past 50 years. In addition to his artistic career, Young has become a vocal advocate for social justice, working specifically to highlight issues that impact farmers and the food system. In 1985, Young joined Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp to launch Farm Aid to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds for family farmers. Today, Farm Aid contributes to the campaign for transparency around genetically modified foods.

In 2015, Young released his 36th studio album, "The Monsanto Years," a concept-based criticism of multinational agrochemical and biotechnology giant Monsanto, the world's biggest seed company. A collaboration with Willie Nelson's sons Lukas and Micah, the album also condemns other industrial agriculture giants like Syngenta, Dow, Dupont and Bayer — corporations that, like Monsanto, have garnered control of global seed production.

By creating patents for genetically engineered seed, these firms have taken away farmers' right to save their own seeds.

"Monsanto wants to sell the farmers the seeds and they want to license the seeds," said Bob McFarland of the California State Grange. "So the farmers can only use those seeds for one cycle, then they have to go back to Monsanto and buy the seeds again."

The rise of GE crops has dramatically increased the use of pesticides and herbicides, which poison wildlife—most notably birds and key pollinating species like bees and butterflies—and impact public health. Herbicide-resistant (aka Roundup Ready) GE crops, according to a 2012 Washington State University study, have led to a 527-million-pound increase in herbicide use in the U.S. between 1996 and 2011. Critics of genetically engineering seeds warn that the next generation of GE crops will only increase the use of even more toxic pesticides and herbicides.

More than 90 percent of all GE crops cultivated in the U.S. have been engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, the world's most popular weedkiller. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen."

Unsurprisingly, Monsanto is not fond of Neil Young's new album. "Many of us at Monsanto have been and are fans of Neil Young," the company told Billboard. "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."

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.