Description
They are also carried out by professional operators when they are called upon to verify their production processes and the conformity of productions, especially at critical points, with laboratory analyses.
If the official analyses must be carried out by an official laboratory of the National Plant Protection Service or under its direct responsibility, the analyses required by producers for the verification of productions can also be carried out by private laboratories that however provide a certain degree of reliability.
Therefore, laboratories that develop activities related to plant protection are distinguished into:
- National reference laboratories, which are identified among the excellence at national level and can confirm the analyses of other laboratories in specialised areas of plant protection as well as train other laboratories to carry out analyses according to appropriate and unified protocols;
- Official laboratories of the National Plant Protection Service, are designated by the SFNs and are in charge of carrying out laboratory analyses from samples taken during official Plant Protection Service controls;
- Approved laboratories to which operators can turn;
- Laboratories that undertake to collaborate with the National Phytosanitary Service.
All these laboratories make up the National Network of Plant Protection Laboratories.
At the European level, Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/625 require the identification of "European Reference Laboratories" for each of the sections of agricultural entomology, acarology, nematology, bacteriology, mycology and virology, for which they take care of all training and diagnostic confirmation activities.
The Decree of the Minister of Food and Forestry Policies of 13 April 2022 identifies the minimum characteristics of these facilities and indicates the operating procedures for their recognition, as well as the tasks, functions and organisation of the National Network of Laboratories established by Article 16 of Legislative Decree No. 19/2021.
The list of laboratories by category is available at the following link: https://www.protezionedellepiante.it/eurl/