RESEARCH PLAN

The project (EUROLEGUME) aims to sustainable use of Leguminous plants and soil resources in order to ensure European citizens with balanced and safe food, ensuring the high quality protein sources in their daily diet by increasing competitiveness and cultivation of legumes for food and feed by:

-    Development of new faba bean, pea and cowpea genotypes of high nutritional value and productivity from local, European genetic resources;

-    Development of new food products for consumers taking into account changing eating habits – fast food, ready to eat and of short processing time;

-    Development of feed ensuring valuable protein source from locally grown legumes instead of imported soya;

-    Expanding of legume insertion in plant rotations in order to increase soil fertility with sustainable tools diminishing load on environment;

-    Increased use of microbiological tools in agriculture for intensification of biological nitrogen fixation in order to increase plant productivity and improve soil properties.

The approach chosen is based on experience and knowledge of the consortium partners in areas selected for research, on worldwide knowledge elaborated previously by the most experienced researchers of EU and the world, and on practical demands from commercial partners ensuring real implementation of the project results ensuring sustainability of the project outcome.

The research work is organized in seven work packages interconnected as show the diagram below: