2017/12/21 by Gérard Duc, Jean‐Michel Chardigny, Duc, Gérard +1
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #0 #Agriculture and Rural Development Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.15454/1.5138503680677366e12
openalex publication_date 2017/12/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Synopsis special issue “Legumes” Agricultural plant production in occidental countries evolved during the 20th century towards more specialized and intensive systems, mobilizing large inputs of agrochemicals and decreasing legumes’ production. This situation leads to agronomic difficulties resulting in low diversity within cropping systems, in reduced protein autonomy of several countries, in pollutions and in increased plant stress frequencies in relation to climate change. On the other hand, the human diet has changed with an increasing meat protein intake in high GDP countries, thus lowering the incorporation of pulse seed in foods; and simultaneously health problems resulting from malnutrition have increased in areas with lower GDP. These facts highlight the huge need for rapid reactions at world and territorial scales, rethinking and reconnecting agricultural and food systems towards healthy and sustainable situations. Possible levers include larger area for legume cropping. Even if these productions are nowadays very low in France and Europe (<3% of arable land) they offer potential benefits since these plants (i) establish a symbiosis with soil rhizobia bacteria that allows them to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and (ii) the products of these crops are sources of protein and have been recognized with nutritional and health values. They also represent key possibilities for developing the protein autonomy in France and the EU. 2016 was declared by FAO as the International Year of Pulses. Against this backdrop of increasing global demand for sustainable protein for food and feed and for climate change mitigation, this opportunity led INRA, CIRAD, Terres Univia and Terres Inovia to organize the 1st "Francophone meeting on legumes" (RFL1) (May 31 - June 1st 2016 in Dijon, France) with attendees from the whole sector, i.e. scientists as well as technical and professional organizations, to discuss the multiple issues and opportunities of seed and forage legumes. Besides French actors, representatives of countries such as Canada or those of the African continent, which are very concerned in various ways for these productions, were targeted; and therefore a French-speaking international perimeter was chosen by a scientific and technical committee for this meeting, Various sessions provided an opportunity to review the current bottlenecks and levers for the development of legumes for human and animal consumption, ranging from the organizational level of policies and sectors, through the levers in culture that would allow an increase in production volumes (new cropping systems, varieties, efficiency of symbiosis), to the quality aspects of raw products or processes that can improve nutritional value or health and bring added value (new production systems and varieties, new products in food or in animal husbandry systems). Impacts on sustainability of production or food have been considered within all of these strategies. The contributions of this special issue are representative of the papers presented during the meeting, which involved more than 250 attendees.