Research shows that incorporating legumes into farming systems as cash crops, intercrops, service crops or feed crops can provide a wide array of benefits. These benefits can include increased soil fertility, greater abundance of beneficial insects and wildlife, and carbon storage, which can translate into increases in farm productivity across the rotation and gross margins or reduced environmental impacts. These legume related benefits, or Ecosystem Services, are not always recognized, however, and could even be underestimated or overlooked.
The legumES project aims to understand the Ecosystem Service benefits offered by legumes in farming systems across Europe. As part of the project, we want to work with farmers or advisors to understand the best way to measure these benefits so that they can be brought into the farm and legumes incorporated in the most effective ways.
We will be asking keen farmers and advisors from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK to measure the legume related benefits they are interested in, following easy-to-use monitoring methods.
Financial support, as well as agronomic guidance, will be made freely available to all farmers involved. in Please follow our social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and X) for updates on this unique opportunity, or register your interest by emailing legumES@hutton.ac.uk with your name, email address and country of residence to receive more information when available.