12/1/06 JAKARTA, (Asia Pulse) - Indonesia has banned the import of oil palm seeds from Papua New Guinea (PNG) following the finding of lethal yellowing disease in the imported seeds, an agriculture ministry official said here on Wednesday.

Head of the Agriculure Ministry's Quarantine Agency Syukur Iwantoro said his office found 300,000 oil palm seeds infected with the disease last October.

The seeds were imported from PNG through Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport, Surabaya's Tanjung Perak seaport and Papua's Merauke port.

"All seeds from PNG are banned from entering Indonesia before they are inspected by a team from the quarantine agency to assure that the seeds to be imported are free from the disease," he said.

He said of the 300,000 infected seeds, 100,000 entered the country through Marauke, 100,000 through Soekarno-Hatta airport and 100,000 others through Tanjung Perak.

He said 100,000 of the seed had been destroyed and 100,000 others were re-exported to PNG.

Referring to the actions taken by his quarantine office in 2005, he said that his office had conducted inspections on imported goods 110,526 times, alienations of goods 12 times, confiscations of imported commodties five times, rejections of goods eight times and destroying imported items 30 times.

The kinds of commodities inspected included food crops (corn and paddy), horticulture (potatoes, vegetables, fruit) and ornamental plants as well as plantation crops such as cocoa, rubber, coconut and oil palm.

The office also inspected other imported goods such as meat, fowl meat, cow and bufallo innards, chicken eggs, ducks, duck feathers vaccine, dog and sheep meat.

(ANTARA)