India's agricultural research labs have been losing not just their valued scientists but vital technical know-how to the multinational companies, a noted farm expert said in Jaipur on Monday.

Devinder Sharma, chairman of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, said that the recent years have seen a disturbing trend of MNCs poaching on the country's scientific workforce in the area of farm research as well as invaluable technical information.

"The scientists are also taking with them precious germ plasm of important crops and there has been no inquiry into the scandal," he said in his lecture at the Institute of Development Studies.

India's strong network of farm labs was in danger of becoming "redundant" if this trend continued, Sharma said.

He also said that the United States and European Union were developing an international legal framework through the World Trade Organisation to protect their own hugely subsidised agriculture sector.

On the other hand the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were putting conditions of agricultural diversification in their assistance to developing countries, he said.

Questioning the view promoted by producers of genetically engineered products that the future of agriculture and food security lies with biotechnology, he asserted that hunger and malnutrition primarily existed not due to insufficient production but due to the lack of access and distribution.