Today, European agriculture is facing significant challenges. On the one hand, farmers need to increase production to ensure food security, while on the other hand, agricultural practices must evolve to become more environmentally friendly. Achieving these goals requires a shift to more sustainable cropping systems that rely less on external inputs.

In this context, legumes present a great alternative to conventional crops since they offer numerous benefits. They contribute to food security, help mitigate climate change, and provide significant ecosystem services (ES) including:

• Reducing the need for chemical fertilizers
• Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• Improving soil health, water quality, and air quality
• Storing carbon in the soil
• Serving as an essential food source for pollinators

However, despite these benefits, legumes are grown on less than 6% of Europe’s arable land. This is primarily due to a lack of knowledge among many farmers regarding their integration into crop rotations, coupled with the insufficient linkage between the environmental benefits of legumes and financial incentives that could promote their use.

In this context, the LEGENDARY project aims to promote the sustainable expansion of legume cultivation in Europe. The project will develop advanced tools and methods to measure the benefits of legumes better, thereby overcoming the challenges that prevent them from being widely adopted in European farming. 

The project will conduct a series of field experiments with annual and perennial legumes in various climate zones under conventional and organic farming systems. These experiments will be closely monitored, and the collected data will help create tools to measure the environmental and social benefits of growing legumes. These tools and methods will ensure farmers and advisors are better equipped to evaluate and appreciate the benefits of growing these crops. Moreover, to ensure the project meets real-world needs, LEGENDARY will use a collaborative approach, working closely with farmers and agricultural advisors.

Within the LEGENDARY project, as a project partner, Etifor will have two main responsibilities: 

1. Assessing the sustainability of legume crops by evaluating their social, environmental and economic benefits. To do so, Etifor will conduct an economic quantification of the benefits (ES) of legume crops (i.e., provisioning, regulating and cultural services). Doing so will help farmers make more informed decisions about sustainable practices and support industries in recognizing the value of legumes.
2. Assessing the aesthetic value of legume crops. This research will quantify the aesthetic value of legume crops in monetary terms across Europe and provide insights into how people perceive these crops compared to other farming options. This analysis will help obtain an economic quantification of the aesthetic value of legume crops in Europe and qualitatively assess public perceptions of different crop alternatives.