Phytosanitary (plant health) regulations and measures in the Member States of the European Union are based on the harmonised rules of the Plant Health Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 and the Regulation on Official Controls (EU) 2017/625. These regulations ensure that comparable measures and controls are carried out in all EU Member States. The JKI has been designated under the Plant Health Act as the central coordination and contact point for cooperation with the EU Commission and Member States on plant health issues.

The JKI works closely with the plant protection services of the 16 Federal States to ensure the effectiveness and implementation of official controls in Germany. The JKI develops uniform guidelines for all Federal States, for example for import and export inspections as well as for monitoring and control measures within Germany.

Another important building block in the harmonisation of phytosanitary controls is the Compendium on Phytosanitary Control, a national online manual on inspection and control procedures initiated jointly by the Federal Government and the Federal States and coordinated by the JKI.

In addition, the plant protection services, operators and citizens can find a wide range of information on the Plant Protection Knowledge Portal, including information on the organisation of the plant protection authorities in Germany with contact persons for phytosanitary issues.

A central part of the service is also a collection of relevant German, EU and non-EU import regulations as well as information on dangerous plant pests.

The JKI is the national reference laboratory for quarantine and comparable new harmful organisms. Our institute shares this function with four other specialised institutes of the JKI. The task of a national reference laboratory is to support the diagnostic work of the plant protection services of the Federal States in the detection and identification of quarantine pests. The main objective is to ensure the quality and safety of the diagnostics of new pests and quarantine pests. This serves both the comparability and recognition of test results of official laboratories and the juridical liability of diagnostic results. To this end, we offer inter-laboratory comparisons, access to reference materials and reagents, and workshops on current phytosanitary diagnostic issues to the official laboratories of the Federal States.

The responsible laboratories are accredited according to EN ISO/IEC 17025 standard.