6533b7d8fe1ef96bd1269f7d

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Legumes in 21st century Europe: present and future importance in agri-food systems? New challenges for reseach.

subject

description

Intensification of agriculture since 1950 has globally led to the decline of grain legume crops, which currently represent less than 3 % of arable crops in France and Europe. Nevertheless, legumes have several major assets (i) as plant proteins for animal feed and human food and (ii) as plants fixing atmospheric N2 and thereby saving nitrogen inputs in cropping systems, and (iii) as diversification crops. The analysis of forage and grain legume producing systems in France showed that the dominant system results in a lock-in of the different factors limiting legume insertion into the current systems. But legumes could have a major role to play in the agroecological transition towards more sustainable agricultural, food and energy systems. The multi-level perspective in the theory of transitions helped us to identify ways of unlocking legume production. Four groups of research questions were thus identified: (i) analysing the lock-ins in the current systems and identifying ways of moving towards systems that include more legumes (ii) identifying new and more diversified outlets for legumes in a sustainable food chain, (iii) assessing and improving the ecosystem services provided by legumes at cropping system and territory scales and (iv) optimising legume crop management in a global agroecological approach.