Disease and pests are eating into the world's supply of bananas, according to a Belgian scientist.

Dr. Emile Frison says edible bananas may disappear within a decade if action isn't taken immediately to develop new, more disease-resistant varieties.

Frison heads the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBP). The organization says the banana is an essential part of the daily diet for more than 400 million people.

Frison is considered a world expert and researcher on the banana and says the bananas we eat are a seedless, sterile variety that could easily be wiped out.

The Cavendish banana lacks genetic diversity argues Frison in an article in New Scientist magazine.

Frison says its survival is threatened by:

• Panama disease caused by soil fungus
• Black Sigatoka, another fungal disease
• Pests invading plantations in Central America, Africa and Asia

The current threat is compared to the potato blight which caused the Irish famine of the 1840s.

The Sigatoka cuts crop yields by as much as 75 per cent and renders plants fruitless in a few seasons.

Uganda, the world's second largest banana producer, has seen a 40 per cent cut in its crop yields. Brazilian farmers say their yields could be down as much as 70 per cent by next year.

Fungicides are proving ineffective against the diseases.

"As soon as you bring in a new fungicide, they develop resistance," says Frison.

Frison has created a global consortium of scientists to sequence the genetic blueprint of the banana within five years.

They will focus on the largely inedible wild bananas which are full of seeds. Many of this kind are resistant to black Sigatoka.

Banana producers won't back the effort because they fear a consumer backlash against genetically modified fruit.

Frison says he's forging ahead.

"Work on the banana genome will be concentrated on finding ways to improve the varieties on which Africans depend on their survival, rather than the one you and I buy off the supermarket shelves."