London, Jan 17: Bad news for banana lovers. Scientists have warned that the world`s favourite fruit was at crisis point and could be extinct within ten years. Reason: the fruit is unable to fight off a rampaging plague of pests and disease.
Emile Frison, head of a worldwide network of banana researchers, said there has been a decline in yields of bananas in Africa, Asia and Central America, reports `The Telegraph`. The doomed banana`s Achilles heel is that it is a genetically decrepit sterile mutant. One of the oldest crops, the first edible variety was propagated about 10,000 years ago from a rare mutant of the wild banana which, with a mass of hard seeds, is virtually inedible.

But because all edible bananas are sterile - effectively clones of that first plant - they are unable to evolve to fight off new diseases. Black sigatoka, a fungal disease that cuts yields by up to three quarters and reduces the productive lives of banana plants from 30 to only two or three years, has become a global epidemic.
The fungus reduced yields by 40 per cent in a year in Uganda, the world`s second largest producer, and is spreading through the Brazilian Amazon and the Far East.
Frison, director of the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain, said black sigatoka was no longer being kept in check.
Luadir Gasparotto, Brazil`s leading banana pathologist, said that the production in Brazil, the world`s fourth largest producer, was likely to fall by 70 per cent because of sigatoka.
To make matters worse, Panama disease, a fungus that wiped out a popular variety in the 1950s, has also returned. Genetic engineering may be the only answer.
Last year, scientists led by Frison announced plans to sequence the genetic blueprint of the banana within five years, focusing on inedible wild bananas, many of which are resistant to black sigatoka. But large producers have refused to back the research because of costs and fears that consumers will not accept it.
Half a billion people in Africa and Asia depend on bananas for up to half their daily calories. Britain imports more than seven billion bananas a year, making it the nation`s favourite fruit. More than 140 million are eaten every week. Bureau Report