Pea4Ever Boot

The Pea4Ever program is part of the overall goal of the National Plant-Based Protein Strategy to double the area planted with grain legumes by 2030. This strategy aligns with the goals of enhancing national and European food sovereignty, while also contributing to greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, particularly by reducing imported deforestation linked to the massive use of soybeans from the Americas.
  

Peas, like most grain legumes, generate a yield per hectare that is significantly lower than that of the dominant crops in French crop rotations, which severely limits the area under cultivation. Furthermore, the species does not benefit from sufficient funding for varietal innovation, leading to limited varietal renewal.
  

The Pea4Ever program consists of an unprecedented effort, pooling resources from all links in the supply chain, with the support of public authorities, to invest in genetic progress in a way that aims to achieve a significant leap in the species’ performance. All of these mechanisms point to a doubling (or even more) of the pea seed market size within 10 years, enabling the current investment momentum to be sustained over the long term.
 

Pea4Ever Amorçage is the first step in this massive and unprecedented R&D program.
  

The overall goal of the program is to deliver, within five years, a set of operational tools that seed companies can use sustainably, as well as advanced breeding lines that can be rapidly incorporated into breeding programs.
  

With such an ambition for rapid impact, the main objective of Pea4Ever Amorçage is to initiate the following key activities:
• New or improved protocols essential for future genetic and breeding work on criteria that have not been studied
, or have been studied only minimally, to date•    Populations or panels of plant material to be utilized (characterized and selected) for this genetic and breeding
work• Databases to support the development of high-throughput breeding methods that exist for other species but are rarely or never routinely implemented in peas•
An initial set of communication tools and content highlighting this work and this ambition.
 

• Accelerate genetic
progress• Initiate the introduction of genetic
diversity• Speed up the development of multi-resistant
varieties• Build capacity to select for climate
resilience• Validate trials on the value of winter and spring types as protein
sources• Launch communication and outreach initiatives