Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production
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Christine H. Foyer, Hon-Ming Lam, Henry T. Nguyen, Kadambot H M Siddique, Rajeev Varshney, Timothy Colmer, Wallace Cowling, Helen Bramley, Trevor A. Mori, Jonathan Hodgson, James Cooper, Anthony J. Miller, Karl Kunert, Juan Vorster, Christopher Cullis, Jocelyn Ozga, Mark L. Wahlqvist, Yan Liang, Huixia Shou, Kai Shi, Jingquan Yu, Nandor Fodor, Brent N. Kaiser, Fuk-Ling Wong, Babu Valliyodan, Michael J. Considine. (2/8/2016). Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production. Nature Plants, 2 (16112), pp. 1-10.
Abstract
The United Nations declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (grain legumes) under the banner ‘nutritious seeds for a
sustainable future’. A second green revolution is required to ensure food and nutritional security in the face of global climate change.
Grain legumes provide an unparalleled solution to this problem because of their inherent capacity for symbiotic atmospheric nitrogen
fixation, which provides economically sustainable advantages for farming. In addition, a legumerich
diet has health benefits for humans
and livestock alike. However, grain legumes form only a minor part of most current human diets, and legume crops are greatly underused.
Food security and soil fertility could be significantly improved by greater grain legume usage and increased improvement of a
range of grain legumes. The current lack of coordinated focus on grain legumes has compromised human health, nutritional security
and sustainable food production.
