Grain Legume Production and Use in European Agricultural Systems

Abstract

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.

Aboveground dry biomass partitioning and nitrogen accumulation in early maturing soybean ‘Merlin’

“…The use of legumes in cropping has effects that range from field to the global scale. The impacts on a global scale are particularly relevant in Europe as a driver of efforts to restore the use of legumes [39].…”

Diversity of protein-crop management in western France

“…From 1961 to 2014, human consumption of protein crops decreased dramatically, but as livestock consumption increased greatly, total consumption of protein crops has grown (Bues et al 2013). As a consequence, today's protein-crop production in the EU does not cover its needs for protein-rich feeds: almost 70% of domestic consumption is imported, mainly as soybean and soybean meal from Brazil, Argentina, and the USA (Watson et al 2017). The situation is slightly better in France, where less than 40% of protein-rich feeds are imported.…”

“…Several authors have reviewed benefits of protein crops, grown as sole crops or as intercrops (e.g., Angus et al 2015;Bedoussac et al 2015;Preissel et al 2015;Watson et al 2017). Protein crops can fix atmospheric nitrogen symbiotically, which supplies nitrogen not only to themselves, but also to following crops (in a crop rotation) and to component crops (in intercropping) ( Fig.…”

“…Likewise, even at the cropping-system scale, protein-crop systems often remain less profitable than specialized cereal-crop systems (e.g., Reckling et al 2016;Ridier et al 2016). Furthermore, protein crops have significantly lower interannual yield stability than non-protein crops, especially in Europe (Cernay et al 2015), due to sensitivity to water stress, weak ability to compete with weeds, sensitivity to pathogens, and harvest difficulties (e.g., lodging, late maturity) (Voisin et al 2014;Watson et al 2017). Finally, replacing soybean meal with protein crops in animal feed may decrease growth performance, especially of pigs and poultry (Watson et al 2017).…”

Consumers’ expectations and willingness‐to‐pay for local animal products produced with local feed

“…More and more agricultural products, including feedstuffs, are traded across national boundaries (Josling et al, 2010). About 70% of protein-rich feed products come from outside Europe (Watson et al, 2017). This dependency holds particularly for the animal production hot spots in the Netherlands and North-West Germany (Van Grinsven et al, 2014;Witten et al, 2014).…”