There is a great demand for high-protein materials for livestock feed in Europe and European agriculture has a deficit of about 70% high protein materials of which 87% is met by imported soybean and soy meal. This reflects the fact that grain legumes are currently under represented in European agriculture and produced on only 1.5 % of the arable land in Europe compared with 14.5% on a worldwide basis. Several grain legumes have the potential to replace at least some of the soya currently used in the diets of monogastric animals, ruminants and fish. There are also opportunities for greater use of legumes in new foods. Here we review the contribution of ecosystem services by grain legumes in European agriculture starting with provisioning services in terms of food and feed and moving on to the contribution they make to both regulating and supporting services which are in part due to the diversity which these crops bring to cropping systems. We explore the need to understand grain legume production on the time scale of a rotation rather than a cropping season in order to value and manage the agronomic challenges of weed, pests and diseases alongside the maintenance or improvement of soil structure, soil organic matter and nutrient cycling. A review of policy interventions to support grain legumes reveals that until very recently these have failed to make a difference in Europe. We contrast the European picture with the interventions that have allowed the development of grain legume production in both Canada and Australia. Whether farmers choose to grow more legumes will depend on market opportunities, the development of supply chains and policy support as well as technical improvements of grain legume production such as breeding of new varieties and management development to improve yield stability. However, to really increase the production of grain legumes in Europe the issues are far more wide reaching than agronomy or subsidy and require a fundamental rethinking of value chains to move grain legumes from being niche products to mainstream commodities.

SummaryFaba bean (Vicia faba L.) is a globally important nitrogen‐fixing legume, which is widely grown in a diverse range of environments. In this work, we mine and validate a set of 845 SNPs from the aligned transcriptomes of two contrasting inbred lines. Each V. faba SNP is assigned by BLAST analysis to a single Medicago orthologue. This set of syntenically anchored polymorphisms were then validated as individual KASP assays, classified according to their informativeness and performance on a panel of 37 inbred lines, and the best performing 757 markers used to genotype six mapping populations. The six resulting linkage maps were merged into a single consensus map on which 687 SNPs were placed on six linkage groups, each presumed to correspond to one of the six V. faba chromosomes. This sequence‐based consensus map was used to explore synteny with the most closely related crop species, lentil and the most closely related fully sequenced genome, Medicago. Large tracts of uninterrupted colinearity were found between faba bean and Medicago, making it relatively straightforward to predict gene content and order in mapped genetic interval. As a demonstration of this, we mapped a flower colour gene to a 2‐cM interval of Vf chromosome 2 which was highly colinear with Mt3. The obvious candidate gene from 78 gene models in the collinear Medicago chromosome segment was the previously characterized MtWD40‐1 gene controlling anthocyanin production in Medicago and resequencing of the Vf orthologue showed a putative causative deletion of the entire 5′ end of the gene.

Europe has become heavily dependent on soya bean imports, entailing trade agreements and quality standards that do not satisfy the European citizen’s expectations. White, yellow, and narrow-leafed lupins are native European legumes that can become true alternatives to soya bean, given their elevated and high-quality protein content, potential health benefits, suitability for sustainable production, and acceptability to consumers. Nevertheless, lupin cultivation in Europe remains largely insufficient to guarantee a steady supply to the food industry, which in turn must innovate to produce attractive lupin-based protein-rich foods. Here, we address different aspects of the food supply chain that should be considered for lupin exploitation as a high-value protein source. Advanced breeding techniques are needed to provide new lupin varieties for socio-economically and environmentally sustainable cultivation. Novel processes should be optimized to obtain high-quality, safe lupin protein ingredients, and marketable foods need to be developed and offered to consumers. With such an integrated strategy, lupins can be established as an alternative protein crop, capable of promoting socio-economic growth and environmental benefits in Europe.

Sustainable development of agriculture is at the core of agricultural policy debates in Europe. There is a consensus that diversification of cropping would support sustainable development. However, a reduction in legume cultivation has been observed in the EU during the last decades. This decline has induced, in turn, a deficit of proteins and a reduction of ecosystem services provided by legumes. Therefore, we analysed the mechanisms that shape agricultural systems to identify leverage points for reviving European legume production. Specifically, we reviewed the factors that affect the market and non-market value of legumes and the relevant agricultural policies. We characterized the decline in legume cropping as an outcome of the dominance of economic forces that favour specialization of production systems over diversification. We found that the value of market outputs of legumes per unit area is relatively low and volatile, with a 25-78 % variation in pea gross margins, which reduces market competitiveness. We observed that the value of systeminternal outputs of legumes such as the nitrogen fixed, of 130 to 153 kg N ha; crop protection services that reduce agrochemical costs, by 20-25 % in cereals; and yield enhancements of subsequent crops, of 0.2 to 1.6 t ha −1 in cereals, are often underestimated. In addition, markets fail to translate external effects of legumes such as biodiversity enhancement, reduction in emissions, of up to 50 % in N 2 O, and soil improvements into economic benefits. Current policies support legumes through selected mechanisms such as ecological focus areas, agri-environmental programmes and sparse coupled support measures. Domestic cultivation of legumes could be supported through trade policies such as import restrictions on genetically modified soybean or new mechanisms to appreciate non-market outputs including payments for ecosystem services and carbon markets. In addition, development of new value chains, niche markets, scaling-up of plant breeding efforts and dissemination of information is required.

Gluten, starch, lipids, and water‐soluble material were separated from seven wheat samples with a range of protein contents and breadmaking quality. The isolated glutens were further partitioned into gliadin‐ and gluteninrich fractions using pH precipitation. Protein content and glutenin‐togliadin ratio were systematically altered by blending these fractions into the original flours in calculated amounts. Mixing properties, extension‐tester parameters, and baking performance of composite flours were determined using small‐scale techniques. Results of dough testing with blends of constant glutenin‐to‐gliadin ratio showed increases in the mixing time, mixograph peak resistance, maximum resistance to extension, extensibility, and loaf volume as the protein content increased. At constant protein content, increases in glutenin‐to‐gliadin ratio were associated with increases in mixing time, mixograph peak resistance, maximum resistance to extension, and loaf volume, and with decreases in extensibility. Thus, total protein content and glutenin‐to‐gliadin ratio independently affected dough and baking properties. The results have allowed the separation of the effects of flour protein quantity and composition on breadmaking properties.