To increase the adoption of legume-cereal intercropping across Europe, farmers need be on board. In this interview, LEGUMINOSE project coordinator Shamina Imran Pathan emphasises how the experiences of the farmers inform the project. She highlights the importance of creating a two-way communication channel between researchers and farmers to ensure that intercropping is adopted widely, reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers and contributing to more sustainable farming practices.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is the LEGUMINOSE project about?
LEGUMINOSE is an acronym that stands for legume-cereal intercropping for sustainable agriculture across Europe. We aim to increase the willingness of the European farmers to adopt intercropping. Most of European agriculture is focused on monoculture and intensive agriculture systems. We want to find out how different combinations of legumes and cereals under different pedo-climatic conditions across Europe can improve soil fertility.
What are the benefits of intercropping?
It has many benefits. For example, the legume crop can fix nitrogen, reducing the need for external fertilisation. Intercropping can also reduce the need for pesticides and it can increase soil fertility.
What can we expect from LEGUMINOSE?
As a soil microbial ecologist, I am most interested in how the different combinations of intercrops under different pedo-climatic conditions can impact the soil microbial community and their function. Furthermore, I want to know how these changes in the microbial community impact plant production. From an environmental perspective, we want to explore how much we can reduce the fertilisation rate, especially with synthetic fertilisers. Possibly, we can also reduce the amount of pesticides needed and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
What makes LEGUMINOSE unique from your perspective?
We are establishing 20 on-farm living labs in seven European countries, including Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, and Denmark. In these trials, the farmers are the main actors. With this approach, we are creating a two-way communication channel that helps us to shape new policies according to the farmers’ needs.
What are the main challenges in LEGUMINOSE?
Establishing 20 living labs per country is challenging. The project has many layers and requires multi-dimensional thinking. We have soil scientists, microbial ecologists, agronomists, botanists, data scientists, and and social scientists all working together. Because all partners are very active. I think we will do well, and at the end of the project, we will have very interesting outputs and results.
What makes you personally excited about the LEGUMINOSE project?
I am coordinating this project, which makes me very excited. However, it also makes me nervous because it is a big responsibilityMoreover, I am very excited about the living labs. Compared to previous European projects, none of them had 180 field trials or case studies.
Curious to learn more about intercropping?