Abstract
Wider and more profitable legume crop cultivation is an indispensable step for the agroecological transition of global agri-food systems but represents a challenge especially in Europe. Plant breeding is pivotal in this context. Research areas of key interest are represented by innovative phenotypic and genome-based selection procedures for crop yield, tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses enhanced by the changing climate, intercropping, and emerging crop quality traits. We see outmost priority in the exploration of genomic selection (GS) opportunities and limitations, to ease genetic gains and to limit the costs of multi-trait selection. Reducing the profitability gap of legumes relative to major cereals will not be possible in Europe without public funding devoted to crop improvement research, pre-breeding, and, in various circumstances, public breeding. While most of these activities may profit of significant public-private partnerships, all of them can provide substantial benefits to seed companies. A favorable institutional context may comprise some changes to variety registration tests and procedures.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Aamir Raina, Aligarh Muslim University, India Johann Vollmann, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Austria
Wider and more profitable legume crop cultivation is an indispensable step for the agroecological transition of global agri-food systems but represents a challenge especially in Europe
Most major legume crops were domesticated at the very onset of agriculture and played a key historical role in agri-food systems as sources of protein complementing carbohydrates provided by cereals, tubers, or roots (Smýkal et al, 2015)
Summary
The increasing awareness of the non-sustainability of current regional and global agri-food systems is leading to strategic plans aimed to expand legume cropping in the European Union (EC, 2018) and globally (Sivasankar et al, 2016) This is needed to respond to the expected sharp increase in the demand for high-protein food and feedstuff (Pilorgé and Muel, 2016) and the consequent insecurity and high predicted cost of plant protein supply in international market. Because of a high nitrogen demand to grow non-legume crops, agriculture is largely based on the use of nitrogen fertilizers, chemically produced in factories with huge consumption of fossil energy Meeting this demand of protein production for food and feed and nitrogen input to agriculture is challenging and may require various changes, such as the extension of the cultivation of legumes and a dietary change toward less animal product-based diets (Westhoek et al, 2011; Searchinger et al, 2019; Willett et al, 2019).
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