Horizon Europe Legume Project: Intercropping of legumes and cereals for sustainable agriculture throughout Europe

As conventional cropping systems face deteriorating soil quality, biodiversity loss, and declining ecosystem services, there is an urgent need to shift practices toward more sustainable yet productive systems. Intercropping enhances biodiversity, maximizes land productivity, and optimizes biogeochemical cycles in agroecosystems, but lacks acceptance among European farmers. Legume-based intercropping leverages biological diversity and synergistic effects between partner plants while reducing external inputs.

A major objective of LEGUMINOSE is to identify barriers to intercropping and improve farmer acceptance by providing knowledge and demonstrations that promote the economic, environmental, and social benefits of legume-cereal intercropping. LEGUMINOSE will evaluate the potential for intercropping by focusing on pesticide reduction, plant microbial-mediated element cycling, improved soil health, and crop quality and health. To overcome barriers to intercropping implementation, we will establish a network of six field trials and farm laboratories (20 farms in each country; 180 on-farm trials) in different pedoclimatic zones in Europe (IT, DE, DR, ES, PL, CZ, UK), Egypt, and Pakistan. In addition, we will integrate remote sensing and crop modeling to survey fields, improve field-scale outcomes, and create a web-based decision support system for intercropping.

In collaboration with various stakeholders, the economic, ecological, and social benefits of legume intercropping systems will be assessed and disseminated internationally, from the farm level to policymakers. We will recognize and engage the entire value chain to explore and test innovative marketing strategies for intercropped products. LEGUMINOSE will contribute to the ecological intensification of European agriculture by providing science-based, farmer-led, and economically viable transformations for legume-based intercropping systems.