The Administration of Agricultural Technical Services (ASTA) is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development.
The ASTA is in charge of agriculture-related controls and services in Luxembourg. Its role is to provide the tools, information, services and controls necessary for the creation and maintenance of an agricultural, horticultural or viticultural business in Luxembourg.
Its services include the creation of information brochures, providing weather information, soil analyses and controls of products resulting from agriculture and livestock farming.
Responsibilities
In the context of international trade, the ASTA is in charge of the certification and control procedures applicable to the import and export of plants, plant products, organic products and feed in Luxembourg as well as their movement within the European Union (EU). The ASTA is the competent authority for the plant protection issues in Luxembourg.
The ASTA is thus responsible for the formalities related to seed potatoes, foodstuffs of plant origin and wood packaging material. The ASTA issues the phytosanitary documents (certificate, passport, communication document) required for the circulation of these goods.
The ASTA is the competent authority for issuing non-GMO certificates for seeds, seed potatoes, plants and animal products (milk...).
The ASTA is also responsible for issuing CITES permits for plants and plant products in the context of international trade of protected species.
The ASTA is in charge of the following inspections:
- inspection of plant and plant products at import
- inspection of organic products at import
- inspection of plant and plant products at export
- control of feed
- quality control.
Following theses controls, the ASTA registers the Common Health Entry Documents for Plants, Plan Products and Plant propagating material (CHED-PP) in the TRACES.NT system. It also centralizes in Traces.NT the Certificates Of Inspection for organic products (COI).
Procedures
The Administration of Agricultural Technical Services is responsible for issuing the following certificates and permits:
- phytosanitary certificate for the export or re-export of plants, plant products and wood
- plant passport for the transport of plants and plant products within the European Union
- intra-EU phytosanitary communication document to transport plants and plant products within the European Union in order to export them to third countries
- CITES permit for the import or export of protected plant species
- letter of authority for the introduction or movement of plants and plants products for trials or scientific purposes
- health certificate for the export of feed
- non-GMO certificates.
Online services
The Administration of Agricultural Technical Services (ASTA) employs the TRACES.NT system used to track movements of certain plants and plant products at the European level. The ASTA will perform phytosanitary controls and enter the result in the TRACES.NT system. If the goods are compliant, the ASTA will authorize access to the European market from a phytosanitary point of view.
Some requests for certificates can be introduced to the ASTA with MyGuichet.lu, the State plateform to complete administrative procedures online.
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Administration of Agricultural Technical Services16 route d'Esch
L-1470 Luxembourg
