Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production

Christine H Foyer^{1

2}, Hon-Ming Lam³, Henry T Nguyen⁴, Kadambot H M Siddique⁵, Rajeev K Varshney^{5

6}, Timothy D Colmer^{2

5}, Wallace Cowling⁵, Helen Bramley⁷, Trevor A Mori^{5

8}, Jonathan M Hodgson^{5

8}, James W Cooper¹, Anthony J Miller⁹, Karl Kunert¹⁰, Juan Vorster¹⁰, Christopher Cullis¹¹, Jocelyn A Ozga¹², Mark L Wahlqvist^{13

14}, Yan Liang¹⁵, Huixia Shou¹⁶, Kai Shi¹⁵, Jingquan Yu¹⁵, Nandor Fodor¹, Brent N Kaiser¹⁷, Fuk-Ling Wong³, Babu Valliyodan⁴, Michael J Considine^{2

5

18}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
² School of Plant Biology, Faculty of Science, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
³ School of Life Sciences and Center for Soybean Research of the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
⁴ Division of Plant Sciences and National Center for Soybean Biotechnology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA.
⁵ The UWA Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
⁶ International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru 502 324, Greater Hyderabad, India.
⁷ Plant Breeding Institute, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Narrabri, New South Wales 2390, Australia.
⁸ School of Medicine and Pharmacology, Royal Perth Hospital Unit, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia 6000, Australia.
⁹ Department of Metabolic Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, NR4 7UH, UK.
¹⁰ Department of Plant Production and Soil Science, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa.
¹¹ Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7080, USA.
¹² Plant BioSystems Division, Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2P5, Canada.
¹³ Fuli Institute of Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
¹⁴ Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.
¹⁵ College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
¹⁶ College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
¹⁷ Centre for Carbon Water and Food, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Brownlow Hill, New South Wales 2570, Australia.
¹⁸ The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, South Perth, Western Australia 6151, Australia.

PMID: 28221372
DOI: 10.1038/nplants.2016.112

Free article

Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production

Christine H Foyer et al. Nat Plants. 2016.

Free article

. 2016 Aug 2:2:16112.

doi: 10.1038/nplants.2016.112.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
² School of Plant Biology, Faculty of Science, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
³ School of Life Sciences and Center for Soybean Research of the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
⁴ Division of Plant Sciences and National Center for Soybean Biotechnology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA.
⁵ The UWA Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
⁶ International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru 502 324, Greater Hyderabad, India.
⁷ Plant Breeding Institute, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Narrabri, New South Wales 2390, Australia.
⁸ School of Medicine and Pharmacology, Royal Perth Hospital Unit, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia 6000, Australia.
⁹ Department of Metabolic Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, NR4 7UH, UK.
¹⁰ Department of Plant Production and Soil Science, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa.
¹¹ Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7080, USA.
¹² Plant BioSystems Division, Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2P5, Canada.
¹³ Fuli Institute of Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
¹⁴ Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.
¹⁵ College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
¹⁶ College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
¹⁷ Centre for Carbon Water and Food, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Brownlow Hill, New South Wales 2570, Australia.
¹⁸ The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, South Perth, Western Australia 6151, Australia.

PMID: 28221372
DOI: 10.1038/nplants.2016.112

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 legume-rich 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 under-used. 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.

PubMed Disclaimer

Cited by

Urine Metabolomics during a Legume Diet Intervention Suggests Altered Metabolic Signatures and Potential New Intake Markers: First Insights.
Ferreira H, Duarte D, Rodrigues JA, Vasconcelos MW, Pinto E, Gil AM. Ferreira H, et al. ACS Omega. 2024 Oct 20;9(43):43453-43468. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c04795. eCollection 2024 Oct 29. ACS Omega. 2024. PMID: 39494014 Free PMC article.
Plant responses to climate change, how global warming may impact on food security: a critical review.
Janni M, Maestri E, Gullì M, Marmiroli M, Marmiroli N. Janni M, et al. Front Plant Sci. 2024 Jan 5;14:1297569. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1297569. eCollection 2023. Front Plant Sci. 2024. PMID: 38250438 Free PMC article. Review.
Toward the sequence-based breeding in legumes in the post-genome sequencing era.
Varshney RK, Pandey MK, Bohra A, Singh VK, Thudi M, Saxena RK. Varshney RK, et al. Theor Appl Genet. 2019 Mar;132(3):797-816. doi: 10.1007/s00122-018-3252-x. Epub 2018 Dec 17. Theor Appl Genet. 2019. PMID: 30560464 Free PMC article. Review.
Impact of small farmers' access to improved seeds and deforestation in DR Congo.
Bernard T, Lambert S, Macours K, Vinez M. Bernard T, et al. Nat Commun. 2023 Mar 23;14(1):1603. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37278-2. Nat Commun. 2023. PMID: 36959195 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.
Metabolic Effects of Bee Larva-Derived Protein in Mice: Assessment of an Alternative Protein Source.
Yokoyama Y, Shinohara K, Kitamura N, Nakamura A, Onoue A, Tanaka K, Hirayama A, Aw W, Nakamura S, Ogawa Y, Fukuda S, Tsubota K, Watanabe M. Yokoyama Y, et al. Foods. 2021 Nov 1;10(11):2642. doi: 10.3390/foods10112642. Foods. 2021. PMID: 34828923 Free PMC article.

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

Actions

MeSH terms

Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources
- Nature Publishing Group
- White Rose Research Online
Other Literature Sources
- scite Smart Citations
Medical
- MedlinePlus Health Information

Save citation to file

Email citation

Add to Collections

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search

Create a file for external citation management software

Your RSS Feed

Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production

Affiliations

Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Similar articles

Cited by

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources

Medical