The LEGVALUE project aims to help farmers benefit from the increasing consumer interest in legumes by compiling information needed to seize new opportunities, and by assisting farmers in making informed decisions on whether and how to introduce legumes on their farms.
The project gathered a wide range of stakeholders with the aim of piecing together a 360-degree view covering all aspects that are relevant for farmers. These include insights on where best to grow legumes, which environmental impacts to address, which quality requirements exist, and information on value chains, price-setting mechanisms, and market developments.

As part of the project, a variety of cropping systems, with and without legumes, were analysed with the use of statistical data and expert knowledge. A model was developed and applied to simulate the yields of five legume species in the current and possible future climates. Building on this analysis, scenarios for the development of legumes were built in four global socio-economic contexts with stakeholder input, and assessed against a range of indicators, showing the efficiency of legume-based cropping systems with respect to the use of N fertilizer and energy.

One of the key outputs of LEGVALUE is a decision support system enabling farmers to receive tailor-made recommendations on the optimal legume species for their farming systems based on their local geographic context.

Best practices and potential improvements in policy design to incentivize the production of legumes in Europe were also identified based on inputs from a series of national and EU level workshops and desk-based research.