Plant Protection Directorate

The Plant Protection Directorate is the National Plant Protection Organisation for Malta. The Directorate is responsible for all plant health aspects of plants, seeds, plant produce and other propagation materials which enter the country. It is also the aim of the Directorate to promote, as much as possible, appropriate measures for the control of quarantine and other important pests. 

In recent years, the Directorate has been appointed as the entity responsible for matters pertinent to the genetic resources for food and agriculture, and as such oversees the implementation of various guidelines, resolutions, and recommendations of the Commissionon Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the InternationalTreaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, its complementary Second Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources for Foodand Agriculture . The Plant Protection Directorate is also the Competent Authority for regulating Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) of Genetic Resources in accordance with the Nagoya Protocol to the Conventionof Biological Diversity​. As such, the Directorate, following consultation with the relevant assistant authorities, is responsible for receiving applications and granting access through prior informed consent for the utilization of genetic resources for research and development activities based on mutually agreed terms for the sharing of benefits arising from such utilization.

In the early 2020, the Plant Protection Directorate will manage Malta's National Gene Bank, which will serve as a national repository for plant genetic diversity. The national gene bank will serve to conserve and facilitate access to local plant varieties, landraces, heirloom varieties, crop wild relatives and other wild plant genetic diversity for use in agriculture, research and conservation activities. The facility will store seeds, as well as plant tissues for in vitro storage and cryo-preservation and complement the existing infrastructure at the Plant Protection Directorate. The gene bank will have the role to generate and analyse genetic diversity for the germplasm stored within its chambers, therefore filling large gaps in the knowledge of national plant genetic heritage.