By Adèle Pautrat

Suddenly, everyone is interested in the crops we grow and import in Europe. The war in Ukraine has really focused our minds on feeding people – or is that feeding animals?

Agriculture in Europe is highly dependent on animal feed inputs – and now, the huge risks and wrongs of this have been exposed. In particular, Europe lacks independence in protein crop and legume production, and this comes with a raft of environmental and food security problems. 

Now is the time when we must readdress the core questions of who eats what, what is the place of plants in European agriculture, and how do we amplify their diversity and availability for people – here in Europe and beyond.

In the recent context of the drop in animal feed imports due to the war in Ukraine, the Austrian delegation supported by some twenty Member States, has presented a proposal to the EU Commission, defending the implementation of a European plan to increase the production of legumes and protein crops within the EU.

Austrian Agriculture Minister Elisabeth Köstinger pointed out that “there is no area of agriculture where we are so obviously dependent on imports”. And indeed, the EU currently imports around 90% of its plant protein needs.

However, leguminous production in the EU has increased by 70% over the last 5 years. And in a recent publication analysing 19 Member States’ draft strategic plans, roadmaps for the implementation of their national agricultural policies, the European Commission has highlighted the fact that coupled support for protein crops and legumes could be increased by 35% compared to the previous programming period.

There is an awareness on the ground regarding the need to promote legume cultivation then, most certainly correlated with an increase in demand and supported by a political will. But one problem remains: the increase in European protein crops and leguminous production would be primarily intended to make the livestock sector less dependent on imports.

So, what we have is crop production for animal feed, not for human food. We are now seeing emergency bailouts and monies being made available for growing animal feeds all over Europe, to the detriment of crucial ecological commitments – and while global food security is more at threat than at any time in recent years.

Then what to do? Well, first, let’s call out this unacceptable situation and get more beany!

We know there is a need to transition diets, especially in our resource-heavy European ways. Although legumes – chickpeas, soyabeans, broad beans, lentils, favabeans, kidney beans and so many more – are still little known to many, they are well worth appreciating. For their nutritional properties and ecological benefits are quite remarkable.

Middle photo © Gabriel Hess, IG: Sortenerhalter

Protein powerhouses, they are also rich in iron, magnesium, calcium, and fibre. They are low in fat and cholesterol. And compared to animal proteins, they are also much cheaper.

On the ecological level, pulses and protein crops require much less water to thrive than many other crops. Attracting bees at times when few other crops are in flower, they are good for biodiversity. Thanks to a particular bacterium found in their roots, they have the great property of fixing nitrogen in the soil and thus require less fertiliser, major source of GHGs, to be grown. Finally, the nutrients they produce as they grow benefit the micro-organisms present in the soil, contributing to its good health.

All this information and more was presented at the first public information session of the Global Beans Project, a network which was born from the desire to give pulses and protein crops a prominent place in our diet.

Initiated by the Foundation on Future Farming (FFF; DE) this network is bringing together around 80 European and international organisations to exchange knowledge, share research, collaborate, and build awareness on the joy and importance of growing and eating plant proteins.

A bold but essential goal: in the European Union, a person consumes an average of 7kg of legumes per year, compared to 70kg of meat.

Conducted by Adèle Pautrat in May 2022

NB: The European Union is a major producer of livestock products on the international market. Between 2010 and 2020, livestock production accounted for around 45% of its final agricultural output. And this is very concretely reflected in our territories.

According to a study published by the European unit of Greenpeace in February 2019, 71% of the continent’s agricultural land is devoted to livestock farming, while half of it is arable land which could therefore be cultivated for the benefit of human food. And in total, 63% of European arable land is actually used for livestock feed.

© Christine Scheiner / A picture from the Bean Gallery

Seeds4All. Recently, you organised an online seed exchange festival. A very interesting pioneering initiative given the difficult context of covid. Can you tell us how it went?

Romain. I would say it was a success! The exchanges were unique in a way, because the advantage of the online event is that we were able to bring together and connect people geographically very far apart. To make it relevant, we asked participants to tell us before the event what they were looking for in terms of seeds and what they had to offer. Finally, we chose to form groups based on the type of climate in which each person lived.

© Carla / A picture from the Bean Gallery

Especially since the question of the EU’s protein strategy is very complex. Austria’s proposal and the position of many member states in the current crisis situation essentially prioritises finding an alternative to the EU’s dependence on animal feed. In our opinion, the urgency is to rely on legumes to feed the population as a priority. This obviously implies, and this is one of the objectives, to reduce our livestock and our meat consumption.

It is therefore a question of supporting the restructuring of the entire agricultural market: investing to support the production of legumes, promoting vegetarian diets, encouraging everyone to use short circuits… The ambition of a Protein Plan would be immense and should, in my opinion, be monitored so that pulses are the big winners of the potential reform.

Seeds4All. What role could the Global Beans play in this context?

Romain. As a large group of partners with potentially varied positions, the Global Beans cannot envisage the implementation of lobbying activities as such. But our mission already tends to support the emergence of a new European ambition in terms of access to proteins.

We would like to invest more, in the months to come, with pioneer farmers capable of participating in the increase of pulses’ sustainable production: by relaying their experiences, promoting their commitments to grow sustainable legumes, connecting them to networks…

Then of course, our desire to help people learn about these issues aims to reverse things from the bottom. And it’s already happening: meat consumption is decreasing, and vegetarian diets are on the rise. The objective now is to contribute to improving the quality, diversity and availability of pulses made in the EU, which we believe can only be accelerated through collaboration and exchange. We are therefore very grateful to the organisations that have joined us in this endeavour and of course, to the public already engaged with us!