France announced Monday it was putting in line a national register of plots of land growing genetically modified organisms (GMO) food crops, which will henceforth be accessible to the general public, according to a statement issued by the French ministry of agriculture and fisheries.

This register gives the exact number and surface areas of GMO plots of land cultivated per district, which is a little more than 19,800 hectares of land declared in 2007 across the entire country.

According to the ministry, the register was drawn up from compulsory declarations made by producers and operators using a variety of genetically modified maize seeds approved in the European Union (EU) market.

French minister for agriculture Michel Barnier said during the announcement that the setting up of this register falls within the government's transparency policy.

In France, anti-GMO sympathizers have in recent years destroyed several dozens of GMO experimental fields, seriously threatening, according to experts, French research in this field.