Monoculture farming, though common, poses significant challenges like soil degradation and pest resistance. The LEGUMINOSE project seeks to address these issues by promoting legume-cereal intercropping – a method that works in harmony with nature to enhance soil health.
In this interview, Jerry Alford, a farming advisor with the Soil Association and a member of Team LEGUMINOSE, emphasises the urgent need for crop diversification in agriculture.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is the LEGUMINOSE project about?
The LEGUMINOSE project is exploring the potential of intercropping as a farming practice, specifically aiming to improve nutrient cycling, introduce alternative crops into the system, and reduce reliance on artificial inputs. Specifically, we are looking at cereals and legumes, like peas and beans.
What are the benefits of intercropping?
By growing these two crops together, there are beneficial effects between them, with the potential of disease and pest reduction, as well as the transfer of nutrients between the two crops. From other trials we know that this mutual support results in increased overall crop yield from the area . The two crops together help each other.
What are the main goals of the project?
We have become dependent on growing monocultures because then the chemical controls, for example, or the system as a whole becomes very simple. But nature does not like monocultures. We are often battling against nature to try and make these monocultures work. Intercropping gives us an opportunity to work with nature a bit better.
How will farmers be involved?
We want farmer-led work. It is peer-to-peer. The farmers learn from each other. They talk about what works and what doesn’t work. They will follow their successes and learn from their mistakes. On-farm living labs are where we let the farmer grow the crop in his own field in relatively big plots rather than the traditional research small plots. They can choose what they do, what they grow; it’s their management. The scientific rigour comes from having enough farms doing a similar thing rather than having a very replicated trial. This approach puts farmers in control.
What are the main challenges in LEGUMINOSE?
One challenge stems from the monoculture attitude that we have in farming. Another, practical challenge is growing two crops together. Can you harvest them together? And what do you do after having harvested them? Can you separate them out to make them usable as a sellable commodity, or do you have to use them just as animal feed? Within the farmer groups that we want to work with, we will bring in companies that utilise that sort of technology to get the farmers to work together to find ways to overcome these problems.
What is your vision for agriculture in 2050?
It would be really nice to see that an intercropping system is relatively normal and that we have a production system which is producing what we need. This means no overproduction of particular commodities and deficits of others. This would lead to a much more balanced agriculture which supports human consumption of high-quality food. By-products would be used in animal farming, so we wouldn’t need to grow crops specifically for animal food.
Curious to learn more about intercropping?