What are your research topics?
My research focuses on grain legumes – beans, peas and their relatives – because their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen into useful forms allows them to produce protein-rich seeds without needing much nitrogen fertilizer. My research started as support to plant breeders, and has broadened to include contributions to genomics and genetics at one end, through agronomy and cropping systems, to quality for feed and food use, to environmental impacts. When there is a legume in a northern European project, I somehow get involved.
A lot of my work is done in Horizon, ERANET and NordForsk projects. I currently coordinate a NordForsk project with partners in Norway, Sweden and Estonia on improving faba bean for our region, with investigations on a leaf disease called chocolate spot, pathways to early maturity, and mechanisms for tolerance to mid-season drought. I have a PhD student on a project examining the evolution of vicine and convicine, two natural chemicals in faba bean that limit its use by some people and animals. I have just coordinated a Horizon Europe application on legumes for the animal-feed chain in Europe.
Where and how does the topic of your research have an impact?
Plant protein is hot. Young people want to eat more plant and less meat, while meat producers need to reduce their dependence on imported soy protein as a feed supplement. In 2013, I was on a panel that reported to the European Parliament about methods to promote the production of protein crops, with the result that production doubled in 6 years. That’s impact!
My team played a leading role in discovering the mode of action of the gene that lowers vicine-convicine levels in faba bean to safe levels, and a photograph that I took was the cover picture on an issue of Nature Plants.
In a Horizon Europe project, InnoFoodAfrica, I was the senior crop scientist helping to design the interventions for farmer participatory research in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. Farmers know what they do, and they do what they know. If they don’t know, they can’t do it, so we taught them some new things, then let them decide. They were able to double and even triple their production of cowpea, faba bean, sweet potato and grain amaranth. Already in the middle of the project, some of our subsistence farmers had surpluses to sell in their local markets.
What is particularly inspiring in your field right now?
We have a great opportunity to improve our food chain. Diversifying our cropping systems by widening the use of legume crops (forage clovers as well as grain legumes for seed) breaks the disease and pest cycles affecting the main cereal crops. Using biological nitrogen fixation in the legume year of the cycle avoids the potential greenhouse gas releases and nitrate leaching that result from manure and fertilizer use. Legume roots contribute to improved soil structure and health, while the flowers provide nectar and pollen for bumblebees and other wild pollinators.
Nevertheless, farmers can’t capitalize on all these benefits unless the cultivars are resilient to stresses and the buyers pay a fair price for the product. Globally, we public-sector scientists are making great progress in uncovering the genetics behind stress tolerance as well as developing agronomic methods for stress avoidance. Nevertheless, we remain way behind our cereal colleagues, because of the relative investment in their crops is much greater.
The use of legumes in foods is an exciting area in both science and economics. As new processing techniques develop and flavours improve, people are gradually consuming more legume products directly, instead of needing an animal to convert them into meat, eggs or milk. In most crops, food quality pays the farmer better than feed quality. Different kinds of support and insurance are needed for farmers to feel secure in attempting to grow these somewhat sensitive crops, but the potential rewards to the following crop on the farm and to society are great.
I am happy to have had so many wonderful and inspirational collaborators at home and abroad over the years.