I first met Malia Chun in late 2013, in front of her home on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, where she pointed between the houses across the street to a nearby field where the agrichemical giant Syngenta tests and produces genetically engineered corn treated with a considerable amount of pesticide.
I met up with Chun again a year and a half later, this time in Syngenta's front yard in Basel, Switzerland. After a short ride through winding, medieval streets on the city's famously punctual public transit, we took pictures outside the tall office building that serves as Syngenta's global headquarters, where a security guard told us we had no chance of getting inside without an employee escort. Unimpressed, Chun asked two university students sitting nearby if they were familiar with Syngenta. The students said they knew that Syngenta sold pesticides, and that a few weeks ago, demonstrators had hung a sign from the building in protest of chemicals thought to harm bees.
