The INCREASE project: Intelligent Collections of food-legumegenetic resources for European agrofood systems

Food legumes are crucial for all agriculture-related societal challenges, including climate change mitigation, agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, food security and human health. The transition to plant-based diets, largely based on food legumes, could present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation, generating significant co-benefits for human health. The characterization, maintenance and exploitation of food-legume genetic resources, to date largely unexploited, form the core development of both sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system. INCREASE will implement a new approach to conserve, manage and characterize genetic resources. INCREASE will test, with a citizen science experiment, an innovative system of conservation and use of genetic resources based on a decentralized approach for data management and dynamic conservation. The INCREASE strategy will have a major impact on economy and society and represents a case study of integrative and participatory approaches towards conservation and exploitation of crop genetic resources.