The 4,400 acres Dustin Spears farms with his father-in-law stretch for 50 miles across northern Illinois in an archipelago of disconnected, mostly rented plots. On the 60-foot planter behind him, a $47,000 sensor array helps deposit each corn kernel at a depth of two inches, no matter how hard or soft the soil. The seeds themselves are a new hybrid with a candy-green coating containing insecticides and fungicides. Spears is an early adopter who upgrades his equipment every 12 months and who just bought a drone to monitor his fields. The company that makes many of Spears' tools, as well as the high-tech seeds he is planting: Monsanto is one of the most hated corporations in America. For much of its history it was a chemical company, producing compounds used in electrical equipment, adhesives, plastics, and paint. The company is best known, however, as the face of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.