LEGVALUE - Fostering sustainable legume-based farming systems and agri-feed and food chains in the EU

The goal of LEGVALUE is to pave the road to develop sustainable and competitive legume-based farming systems and agri-feed and food chains in the EU. To this end, the project will assess both the economic and environmental benefits for the EU agro industry to widely produce and use legumes in a sustainable manner. Using a list of 20 value chains reflecting the market diversity, and a list of 20 farm networks covering the diversity of grain legumes and fodder legumes species, LEGVALUE will demonstrate the added value of various legumes value chains and will provide a range of solutions to improve the economic interest of each actor involved in the value chains to use legumes. The feature of LEGVALUE is an approach to research that takes stakeholder-driven objectives. The gap between research and practice will be overcome with close collaboration between non-academic actors and scientists. LEGVALUE will result in the first decision tool for farmers to choose the optimal legume species with their adapted crop management and to assess the economic and environmental benefits of legumes in the cropping and grassland systems.

LEGVALUE will contribute to identifying the supply chains that are the most competitive to foster legumes crops so helping the EU to identify:

1. the technological topics that must be supported in priority to enhance legumes development;
2. insights into how to support actors coordination for better added value sharing
3. the new standards that will help trade and process of legumes. LEGVALUE will provide accurate recommendations for the development of legumes in the EU. By removing current market opacity and the design of transition pathways, LEGVALUE will provide scientific support for EU and national policy-makers directed at increasing legume production, support technological innovation and organisational innovation in supply chains, meeting the EU Parliament 2011 motion on increasing self-sufficiency on protein rich plant materials.