Project description
Growing Europe’s legume potential
Legumes, known for nitrogen fixation and soil enrichment, offer a sustainable solution for enhancing soil health and reducing reliance on synthetic fertilisers. Despite their environmental benefits, barriers hinder their widespread adoption. In this context, the EU-funded LEGENDARY project aims to address these barriers. With a focus on perennial and annual legumes, it aims to develop advanced tools surpassing current standards to quantify ecosystem services in diverse agro-climatic zones. Using traditional and cutting-edge sensing technologies, the project aligns its research with practical needs. By integrating historical data, LEGENDARY targets the valuation of regulating and cultural/social services. Ultimately, it will develop user-friendly tools guiding farmers toward legume species and cropping systems that enhance fertilisation, manage noxious organisms, and promote sustainable agriculture.
Objective
The objective of LEGENDARY is to remove the barriers that hamper a significant and stable increase of the growing area of legumes in Europe. LEGENDARY has the ambition to develop tools and methods going considerably beyond the state-of-the-art to quantify Ecosystem Services (ESs) of perennial and of annual legumes in different agro-climatic zones. Based on co-creation, LEGENDARY aligns its research strategy with the actual needs. Field experiments will be monitored by a combination of traditional observation methods and advanced sensing technologies whose sensor reads are translated to ES trait values by means of dedicated statistical and machine learning models. These data will be fortified with results from past/ongoing projects. Valuation of the provisioning ESs will mainly be based on historical data, as the focus is to develop tools/methods for the valuation of the regulating services as well as for the valuation of cultural/social services including recreation, education and aesthetic values. These tools/methods will provide ready-to-use indicators to better equip farmers/advisors to evaluate and appreciate the benefits of legumes, including enhanced fertilising regimes, management of noxious organisms as well as recommendations to strengthen crop diversification and longer rotation cycles with crops beneficial for the environment, the farmer and the consumer. A user-friendly Collaborative Multicriteria Decision Support System will be developed, to assist farmers in the choice of legume species and cropping systems suitable for their farm. LEGENDARY’s results will contribute to develop guidelines for science-policies bodies. Consequently, the results and implementation actions provided will ultimately contribute to achieve five of the 17 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and to accelerate the transition required by the European Green Deal. LEGENDARY’s legumes have the ability to promote soil health and will thus contribute to the Soil Deal for Europe.
Fields of science
- social sciencessociologygovernancepublic services
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicssustainable economy
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturegrains and oilseedslegumes
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
9000 Gent
Belgium
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Participants (15)
35131 Padova
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
8000 Aarhus C
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4000 Roskilde
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4362 Esch Sur Alzette
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93051 Regensburg
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546 36 THESSALONIKI
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08140 Caldes De Montbui Barcelona
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6708 PB Wageningen
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21000 Novi Sad
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34125 Kassel
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9000 Gent
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6225 ALTRIER
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8800 RUMBEKE-BEITEM
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11108 Belgrade
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
3000 Leuven
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
Partners (5)
Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
3003 Bern
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Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
8046 Zurich
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
1700 Fribourg
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
NG13 8PJ Eastbridgford, Nottingham
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Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
SY23 3BF Aberystwyth
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