This podcast, produced by FAI Farms, interviews Josiah Meldrum, founder of Hodmedods, which specialises in legumes and grains grown in Britain. The podcast discusses why Meldrum classes Hodmedods as an agroecological retailer, how relationships with suppliers are developed, and approaches to scaling up regenerative agriculture.

In this paper, George Cusworth, Tara Garnett and Jamie Lorimer of the Oxford Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project explore six narratives about the role that legumes can play in the future European food system. They identify three issues that these narratives are responding to as well as three areas of consensus about the potential of legumes.

This article by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future argues that more emphasis should be placed on legumes - such as soybeans, peanuts, chickpeas, fava beans, lentils and other beans and peas - as a source of dietary protein, for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, and for their ability to increase soil fertility through atmospheric nitrogen fixation. It reviews trends in legume production and consumption and identifies challenges and limitations to increasing legume use worldwide.

This report from the UK charity the Soil Association examines how disruption to the nitrogen cycle can damage the climate, biodiversity and human health. It proposes replacing widespread use of synthetic fertilisers with agroecological use of nitrogen-fixing legumes and manure from grass-fed livestock. 

This article from Civil Eats examines how the rise of both plant-based diets and regenerative agriculture practices have encouraged more farmers in the United States to grow pulses such as lentils, peas and chickpeas. As pulses become more popular with US consumers, a smaller fraction of the US pulse harvest is exported to other countries.

FCRN member Ken Giller, professor of Plant Production Systems at Wageningen University & Research, has contributed to the online magazine “The Story of N2Africa”, which tells stories from the last ten years of the project N2Africa: Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa.

This paper from the UK’s Institute of Development Studies analyses how the project N2Africa: Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa has contributed to development outcomes in Ghana and Ethiopia. 

An audio recording of the 2019 Mansholt Lecture, organised by Wageningen University & Research, is available. The lecture, which took place on 18 September 2019, discussed the challenges of future protein production and consumption, including protein from plants, animals and microorganisms.