Legume growing has many benefits. Indeed legumes provide plant proteins for animal feed and human food. Legumes fix atmospheric N 2 and, in turn, provide cheap and green N fertilisers. Additionally, legumes are used as diversification crops in rotations based on oilseed rape and cereals. Despite those benefits, legume crops in Europe represent less than 4 % of arable lands, and European legume seeds are underused for animal and human nutrition. Nonetheless, European authorities are now fostering the development of legume crops for sustainable agriculture. Here, we analyse forage and grain legume-producing systems since 1950 in order to identify the actual constraints of legume development. We show that legumes can contribute to the agroecological transition for sustainable agriculture, food and energy and for sustainable agri-food systems. Then, we point out that high added-value niche markets are required for supporting legume production. The major research needs identified are (1) analysing the constraints of the current systems and identifying ways of moving towards systems that include more legumes, (2) identifying new and diversified uses for legumes in a sustainable food chain, (3) assessing and improving the ecosystem services provided by legumes at cropping system and territory scales and (4) promoting agroecology through and for legume crop management.

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Smooth and wrinkled pea cultivars were studied to evaluate the protein content of the seeds, 'the proportion of albumins to globulins and the variability of the vicilinllegumin ratio., Principal components analysis showed a strong negative correlation between albumin and globulin contents. Stepwise discriminant analysis demonstrated that two variables, protein content and vicilinllegumin ratio, divided the samples into smooth and wrinkled cultivars with a percentage of success of 95%. In addition, the vicilinllegumin ratio tended to increase, the lower the protein content is.