More legumes are fundamental for food security and sustainability. In Portugal, this path is currently being engineered through a multi-sectoral mission involving the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (CAP), ProVeg Portugal, CERPRO, and Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP). This consortium is navigating a complex industrial puzzle: building a resilient legume value chain from the ground up while grappling with volatile weather and industrial standards.
1. The Power of the “Collaborative Group”
One major milestone was the creation of a national plant protein strategy coalition. Managed by ProVeg Portugal, this Collaborative Group reached a milestone of 65 members by the end of 2025. The group’s strength lies in its transdisciplinary architecture, uniting around 30 companies, ranging from distributors and retailers to industrial processors, and more than 25 farmers, cooperatives, agriculture companies and farmers associations.
To connect the field to the industry and academia, the group utilizes a proactive “matchmaking” mechanism. Also, ProVeg Portugal hosted an event on legumes and mass catering for nearly 100 stakeholders and organised a roundtable at COP30 to discuss policy-driven protein diversification.
2. Nature’s Veto: The Reality of Climate Instability
While the strategic plans are robust, the reality of the project faces some “Atlantic challenges”. The transition from late 2025 into early 2026 has been defined by extreme climate instability in Portugal. Successive storm systems since November last year made necessary cultural operations nearly impossible, culminating in Storm Kristin, which ended in January 2026.
The agricultural struggle was visible in the waterlogged soil. Subsequent deluges left seeds in flooded tractor ruts, with field reports showing germinated seeds with browned, rotted centers. Currently, the project is in a high-stakes “waiting game” for the remaining 16.5 hectares of lupins and 5 hectares of chícharo (grass pea). Additionally, the works for the 20-hectare block of chickpeas are scheduled for the first quarter of 2026, contingent upon a rare two-week “weather window” of dry conditions required to move machinery onto the muddy terrain.
3. Industrial Readiness: What the Market Demands
Interviews with major Portuguese players have crystallized a truth: while demand for legumes is high, “industrial readiness” remains a significant barrier. For a successful off-taking harvest volume, the national supply must overcome specific technical hurdles: standardization and calibre, purity and preprocessing and infrastructure gaps. The consensus among strategists is the urgent need for intermediate structures, such as cooperatives, to handle aggregation, storage in silos, and initial cleaning.
4. The Next Frontier: Legume-Based “Cheese”
To move the needle on economic resilience, the project is looking beyond raw grain toward high-value valorization. Researchers at the UCP are spearheading the scientific framework for a legume-based cheese analogue prototype.
Currently in the literature review and specification selection phase, the UCP team is defining the parameters required to transform chickpea, grass pea, and lupin into a sophisticated product. The development process involves a rigorous technical itinerary:
- Proximate composition and detailed nutritional profiling.
- Bioactive and microbial quantification to ensure safety and functional value.
- Texture and color analysis paired with sensory evaluation to meet consumer expectations.
This move from raw commodity to processed “high-value” consumer goods is essential for decoupling farmer income from the volatility of bulk grain markets.
5. Training a New Generation of Legume Farmers
The final pillar of the revolution is a systemic transfer of knowledge led by CAP. Recognizing that farmers are already managing complex, high-value rotations, CAP has developed a 25-hour “Cultivation of Protein Crops” course.
This online, after-work training is designed for maximum accessibility and is set to run in March, 2026. The curriculum focuses on the sustainable management of protein crops, emphasizing their role in soil fertility and their integration into modern technical itineraries. Registration numbers have been strong, signaling a high level of farmer interest in diversifying their operations.
The objective is to strengthen the skills of farmers and technicians in the sustainable production of protein crops, highlighting their role in crop rotation, the sustainability of agricultural systems and the enhancement of their food and industrial use.