T
he Legume Generation consortium is dedicated 
to enhancing legume breeding in Europe by 
fostering collaboration between entrepreneurial 
breeders and an inventive research community. 
Its goal is two-fold: to directly strengthen the 
breeding of key legume species, and to establish 
innovation frameworks that support sustained public 
and private investment. To achieve this, the project 
brings together genetic, agronomic, economic and 
research strategy perspectives across soybean, lupins, 
pea, lentil, phaseolus beans and clovers within spe­
cies-specific innovation communities.
Our six communities support 32 breeding and 43 
pre-breeding programmes. Each innovation commu­
nity is unique, but all are supported by investigations 
into beneficial traits, breeding methods; the creation 
and validating novel resources; screening and testing 
germplasm and new cultivars in different regions; ide­
otype concepts, and the provision of training to sup­
port breeding gains. We also develop governance and 
financial models, business plans, and facilitate internal 
and external communication through the European 
Legume Hub. 
WHY IT MATTERS
Legumes are central 
to developing more 
resilient European 
farming systems, 
yet their on-farm 
performance has 
fallen behind major 
arable crops. A key 
reason is chronic 
underinvestment 
in plant breeding. 
The Legume 
Generation project 
responds by placing 
breeders at the 
centre of innovation, 
building structured 
collaboration 
with research to 
accelerate genetic 
progress in key 
legume species.
LEGUME GENERATION: 
PUTTING BREEDERS BACK AT THE CENTRE 
OF EUROPE’S PROTEIN TRANSITION
A NEW MODEL OF BREEDER-LED COLLABORATION AIMS TO CLOSE THE PERFORMANCE GAP IN 
LEGUMES AND REBUILD THEIR ROLE IN EUROPEAN CROPPING SYSTEMS.
BY: DR DONAL 
MURPHY-BOKERN, 
SCIENTIFIC 
COORDINATOR
WHY LEGUMES HAVE LOST GROUND IN 
EUROPEAN FIELDS 
The last 60 years has seen huge changes in European 
farmers’ cropping choices and how these are sup­
ported by plant breeding. Thanks to high latitude and 
the moderating effect of the North Atlantic Drift, 
European farmers are particularly good at growing 
carbohydrate-rich crops — especially winter wheat, 
winter barley, and maize. In line with Ricardo’s theory 
of international trade, comparative advantage has led 
farmers to specialise in these crops. Even though they 
grow well in Europe, the production of grain legumes 
has declined from about 6% of the arable area in the 
early 1960s to 2-3% today. Farmers complement their 
specialisation by importing about 19 million tonnes 
of plant protein. The outcome is remarkable. The EU 
is now generally self-sufficient in all major foods and 
feed that can be produced effectively in the EU, except 
soya, supporting resource and carbon intensive diets 
for more than 450 million people. But Europe’s large 
dependence on external sources of protein and on fer­
tiliser nitrogen is increasingly seen as a fundamental 
challenge to the resilience, acceptance and perfor­
mance of European agri-food systems. 
22  I  SEED WORLD EUROPE  I  SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE | MAY 2026

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