Talking to newsmen here, he asked farmers to use only indigenously produced seeds for cultivation. He also said a bio-diversity act, aimed at protecting plant varieties and farmers rights, had been cleared by the Union Cabinet and it would be tabled before Parliament shortly.

Dr Paroda said a national agricultural project would be taken up with the World Bank assistance of about 240 million US dollars.

Besides carrying out research over the next five years on certain agricultural products with various technologies, including bio-technology and transgenic technology, steps would be taken to apply the findings on the field.

The ICAR had selected 18 agricultural universities as centre of excellence, which would do research on the products. The TNAU, which was one of the 18 centres, would be allottedRs 1.65 crore for carrying out research on rice and rice-based products.

Earlier, speaking at a meet on `Agricultural biotechnology' here, Dr Paroda said the use of bio-fertilisers had considerably brought down the use of chemicals in agricultural to 52,000 tonnes.