Unlocking the Benefits of Legumes: Boosting Sustainability of Agroecosystems.

The goal of sustainable agriculture is to concurrently deliver several services such as providing food security, maintaining natural resources, retaining and improving farmers’ profitability, and sustaining biodiversity. Sustainable systems are directly or indirectly designed to increase the diversity of cultivated crops and one of the most frequent strategies is to substitute agrochemicals and fossil fuels with the ecosystem services (ES) provided by legumes. Although crop diversification is promoted by CAP eco-schemes and current EU regulations, legume adoption is not adequate mainly because of limited awareness and knowledge among farmers on legume benefits, the need for appropriate management practices, and the development of value chains for legume-based products. To fill these gaps, a project titled VAlorization LEgumes Related ECOsystem Services (acronym VALERECO) has been recently funded by the European Union to identify, quantify and improve the environmental and economic value of the ES provided by twelve different legume crops in eleven countries. ES will be identified through a systematic analysis on the ecosystem-services and an investigation of the gateways for diffusion of legumes and their associated ES. Their valorization will be through the establishment of nine Living Labs for economic, environmental and technical assessments of 3D diversification strategies in on-station participatory trials. Therefore, the vision of the exposition of VALERECO is to connect/cooperate with extra-EU countries experts facilitating mutual learning and knowledge transfer. Promoting legumes adoption worldwide can contribute to sustainable agricultural practices (i.e., soil health, reduction of synthetic fertilizers) and to healthier diets with positive impacts on the resilience to climate change and human health.