• Reduce the environmental impact of soybean cultivation by increasing local soybean production in France
• Improve France's competitiveness on the soybean market and reduce its dependence on soybean imports
• Develop new soybean varieties adapted to local soil and climate conditions and resilient to climate change
• Generate innovative knowledge on soybean-microorganism interactions, cold tolerance, food protein quality and agronomic modeling
• Understand the obstacles to the development of soybean consumption in France

The aim of the SOYSTAINABLE project is to promote high-quality, protein-rich soybean food production in France, by developing new genetic resources and cultivation methods for a locally adapted soybean crop, and more specifically :

• Create collections of early-maturing European soybean genetic resources, including induced or natural genetic diversity.
• Improving soybean protein quality without affecting the plant's physiology and stress tolerance.
• Evaluate and develop locally adapted soybean varieties that are resilient to climate change.
• Capture the microbial diversity of French soils and optimize microbial communities beneficial to soybean cultivation in France.
• Develop agronomic models of soybean cultivation for food to predict soybean performance in different locations in France under various scenarios.
• Investigate socio-technical blockages to soy consumption and explore new food uses for soy, such as edamame, by introducing food innovations and citizen science approaches.

• Acquisition of new knowledge on soybean-microorganism interactions, cold tolerance, protein quality genetics and agronomic modeling.
• Generation, conservation and exploitation of microbial and plant collections.
• Development of new agricultural practices and beneficial microorganisms for soybean cultivation.
• Analysis of socio-technical barriers and levers, which will enable us to better understand blockages and promote new food uses for soybean as well as its cultivation.
• Training and renewal of the R&D community working on soybean, creating a network of young technicians, researchers and experts to implement the project's emerging scientific and socio-economic concepts.

The main challenge of this project is to encourage the emergence of new varieties of chickpea, lentil and dry bean that are more resilient to biotic and abiotic stresses and better adapted to conditions in all growing zones.

The aim of this project is to explore the worldwide genetic diversity available in chickpea, lentil and bean on criteria of major interest for their agronomic management, yield development and seed quality. The aim is to identify new varieties adapted to growing conditions in France and potential genitors for new initial crosses, in order to develop varieties better suited to the expectations of manufacturers and farmers, and to the soil and climate constraints of their growing areas.

• Characterization and analysis of the genetic diversity of available collections
• Development of new varieties with improved performance for the three species studied

The INCREASE project addresses various aspects of the management of genetic resources of food legumes, which are crucial for sustainability, food security and human health. It addresses technological, scientific and societal issues aimed at supporting agricultural sustainability and innovation in Europe.

The INCREASE project aims to improve the management and use of food legume genetic resources in Europe through an innovative and collaborative approach:

• Improving access to legume genetic resources by increasing the quantity, quality and accessibility of information available to users.
• Develop "smart collections" of genetic resources in the form of nested core collections representing the full diversity of each species. These collections will be used to select traits of interest to users.
• Adopt cutting-edge genomics and molecular phenotyping technologies and artificial intelligence-based tools to improve the characterization of genetic resources and thus enable the identification of traits useful for crops and food.
• Set up a decentralized data management infrastructure, using technologies such as blockchain to enable efficient data sharing and integration.
• Involve citizens through participatory science experiments, enabling them to contribute to the conservation and management of legumes, while raising public awareness.
• Collaborate internationally to broaden the scope of the project and facilitate the integration of genetic resources available worldwide.

• Improve the conservation and use of genetic resources by setting high quality standards across Europe and beyond.
• Increase the quantity and quality of data associated with genetic resources.
• Develop innovative solutions for sharing genetic resources.
• Develop new legume varieties that are better adapted to European environments and more resistant to climate change, in particular by exploring diversity for drought tolerance in chickpea and common bean.

Scientific challenges

• Reducing pesticide use by exploiting plants' natural resistance to pathogens.
• An innovation in plant biology, with an innovative strategy based on the analysis of the genomic diversity of PRR genes to improve the basic immunity of soybean against sclerotinia.
• Better knowledge by identifying and characterizing specific PRR alleles that confer enhanced resistance to the pathogen, thus contributing to the understanding of resistance mechanisms in plants.

Socio-economic challenges

• Securing agricultural yields: by developing more resistant soybean varieties.
• Support for sustainable agriculture: the results of the project can be used in both conventional and organic farming, providing a sustainable solution for crop protection.
• A response to the growing demand for soybeans by providing more resistant and adapted soybean varieties.

The project aims to develop an innovative method for rapidly and quantitatively assessing the resistance of soybean varieties to sclerotinia, and to explore the diversity of PRRs in soybean to identify the alleles responsible for this resistance. The expected results will make it possible to improve the resistance of elite soybean lines to sclerotinia.

• High-throughput phenotyping methodology: improvement of the field measurement protocol and development and validation of an innovative, quantitative disease phenotyping method using the Navautron system.
• Identification of PRR alleles conferring increased resistance to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum: these alleles could be used in breeding programs to improve the resistance of elite soybean lines.

Cap Protéines+ is part of the National Strategy for the Development of Plant Proteins (SNPV). This large-scale project follows on from Cap Protéines, which produced numerous results (tools for producers and breeders, initiatives to structure local supply chains, new technical references, etc.).

Launched in 2024, Cap Protéines+ aims to capitalize on this dynamic partnership between the animal and plant sectors to boost the production and use of plant proteins. The aim is to strengthen France's protein sovereignty by acquiring technical and economic benchmarks, and helping industry players (from farmers to processors) to take full advantage of existing innovations and knowledge.

Cap Protéines + aims to meet the following objectives:

• Secure the ability to produce grain and forage legumes, in organic and conventional production, by evaluating and transferring robustness levers and researching new solutions;
• Promote the use of French plant proteins by animal and human food processors;
• Structure and strengthen the plant protein production and processing sectors in France (including overseas territories) to make them sustainable;
• Support industry players on a massive scale by proposing collaborative approaches to acquiring references and implementing strategies to increase sovereignty on a regional scale;
• Promote the transfer of results that can already be deployed to farmers and trainees.

• Identify limiting factors and propose optimized technical itineraries to secure the production of grain and forage legumes, adapted to the context of climate and regulatory change.
• Develop technical, economic and environmental benchmarks for French plant proteins.
• Develop innovations in processing techniques to support the "vegetalization" of the food supply.
• Support the structuring of local supply chains for animal feed and human consumption.
• Produce knowledge, methods and tools for use by farmers and learners
• Propose ways of supporting risk-taking related to initiated transitions

• Acquisition of technical references on the production of seed legumes to respond to biotic and abiotic stresses in a context of climate and regulatory change.
• Development of technical and economic references on French protein-rich materials, and support for the construction and evaluation of strategies to increase protein sovereignty on a territorial scale.
• Production of references and tools to help structure production chains in line with downstream needs, from processor to consumer.
• Supporting farmers and their advisors in the implementation of levers to secure their capacity to produce legumes, thanks to reinforced support in the field, the production of actionable supports and tools, and by integrating the cropping system scale in a multi-performance approach.
• Development of risk-taking support methods for farmers and collecting organizations.
• Disseminate information and results from ongoing research and development work on legumes.