censored frankenfood map

i really wanted to title this post "frankenfood in Frankreich", but I decided long ago against snilly (snarky and silly) titles for my posts on atlas(t).

Via kartentisch I found out that the French chapter of Greenpeace got into trouble with a google maps mashup marking Monsanto fields of genetically engineered (GE) maize in France. EU law requires that the locations of fields of GE crops be made public to minimize the risk of non-GE crops being contaminated, but France has been slow to make this into national law. A French court recently ordered French Greenpeace to remove their GE map.

So Greenpeace has responded by going into the fields in the south of France which are not now otherwise marked, and marking the actual fields with crop circle "x's".

The map above shows the location of these crop circles, and can be found on Greenpeace's international site.

Why is this information important?

GE grains haven't been adequately tested for human consumption and they're putting new GE strains out there all the time. At this point, we don't really have any idea of the dangers GE crops might expose us to. These grains "introgress" to neighboring fields, i.e. their seeds fly over into neighboring areas on the wind, or carried by birds and other animals, and hybridize non-GE crops. So these genetic elements are entering our environment and even our "organic" food supply in an uncontrolled manner.

in nearly 20 percent of the investigated cases, neighbouring conventional and organic maize fields in Spain are contaminated by GE organisms, without farmers and consumers even knowing about it.

Check out the links on the Greenpeace page for information on what you can do about it.