Impacts of Grain Legume Research & Development in Developing Countries

Photo by Shelley Pauls on Unsplash

Facing a global challenge on food production and sustainable agriculture due to drastic climate change such as extreme temperatures, limitations to freshwater supplies and soil erosion, global food security, economy, and environmental sustainability have been recognized among the top national priorities of developing and developed countries alike.

The current research group has identified grain legumes as environmentally friendly crops with high nutrition value and their great potential to combat the aforementioned challenge. Yet, the current lack of coordinated focus on grain legumes has compromised human health, nutritional security and sustainable food production.

The WUN research group “Legumes: The Hub of Diversification and Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture” has jointly published “Neglecting legumes has compromised human health and sustainable food production” in Nature Plants in 2016 and co-edited a special issue on legumes in Journal of Experimental Botany to response to the situation. The research group has demonstrated a cross-disciplinary approach to tackle global challenges spanning food security, climate change and health.

The current research group pledges to foster and coordinate an international consortium on legume research through the establishment of a communication network. With the organization of WUN Symposium cum Research Summit in 2017, which features a parallel workshop for young scientists to explore the impact of grain legume research and development has in developing countries, and how it contributes to their economic development, environment, and well being, a multi-level, multi-disciplinary academic exchange platform was established. Not only did the early career researchers educate the latest and future development plans of legumes technology, sustaining collaboration was also built between the experienced and budding talents.

Further to the success of the WUN Symposium cum Research Summit, the research group has created global awareness of legume research with impact publications. Initiated and co-edited by Prof. Christine Foyer, Prof Henry Nguyen, and Prof Hon-Ming Lam, two Special Issues on Plant, Cell & Environment were issued in 2018 and 2019 (Special Issue on Legumes: Part I and Special Issue on Legumes: Part II), in which three peer-reviewed publications were jointly published by the research group. Following the issuance of the Special Issues on Plant, Cell & Environment, the research group has maintained the momentum for joint research with fruitful outcomes.

In 2019, the research group led by Prof. Hon-Ming Lam and Prof. Ting Fung Chan together with international collaborators, including Prof. Christine Foyer, Prof. Henry Nguyen, and Prof. Gyuhwa Chung jointly announced the world’s first reference-grade wild soybean genome in “A reference-grade wild soybean genome” in Nature Communications.

Another joint publication “Construction and comparison of three reference‐quality genome assemblies for soybean” involving Prof. Henry Nguyen, Prof. Hon-Ming Lam, Prof. Scott Jackson, Prof. Rajeev Varshney, and Prof. Ting Fung Chan was published in The Plant Journal. “Modelling predicts that soybean is poised to dominate crop production across Africa” was also published in Plant, Cell & Environment with concerted efforts from the collaboration led by Prof. Christine Foyer and Prof. Hon-Ming Lam, together with 9 WUN partners. Prof. Hon-Ming Lam attended the UWA – ICRISAT Joint-workshop on Mitigating Abiotic Stresses in 2019 as a continuation as a result of the WUN support.

Throughout the project period from 2017-2019, the research group received recognition in the international arena and has joined forces with world-renowned scientists to address the crucial role of grain legumes in tackling food security issues from a global perspective.

With their concerted efforts, a total of 96 publications and 10 scholarly events have directly or indirectly arisen from the project. The cross-disciplinary team has significantly catalyzed researches on grain legumes to combat the increasing global challenges on food security and climate change. Building on this solid foundation, members sharing the common vision will endeavor to seek further funding support for the development of an international soybean genomics research center.