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• Crop diversification is a dynamic pathway towards sustainable agrifood systems. • Technological and institutional barriers restrict uptake of crop diversification. • More coordination and cooperation among agrifood system stakeholders is required. • The European Crop Diversification Cluster calls for multiactor networks. European cropping systems are often characterized by short rotations or even monocropping, leading to environmental issues such as soil degradation, water eutrophication, and air pollution including greenhouse gas emissions, that contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss. The use of diversification practices (i.e., intercropping, multiple cropping including cover cropping and rotation extension), may help enhance agrobiodiversity and deliver ecosystem services while developing new value chains. Despite its benefits, crop diversification is hindered by various technical, organizational, and institutional barriers along value chains (input industries, farms, trading and processing industries, retailers, and consumers) and within sociotechnical systems (policy, research, education, regulation and advisory). Six EU-funded research projects have joined forces to boost crop diversification by creating the European Crop Diversification Cluster (CDC). This Cluster aggregates research, innovation, commercial and citizen-focused partnerships to identify and remove barriers across the agrifood system and thus enables the uptake of diversification measures by all European value-chain stakeholders. The CDC will produce a typology of barriers, develop tools to accompany actors in their transition, harmonize the use of multicriteria assessment indicators, prepare policy recommendations and pave the way for a long-term network on crop diversification.

This paper presents the results of a legume-based value chain analysis based on twenty-seven case studies in the H2020 LegValue project and discusses those relating to organic legume-based value chains. The analysis aims to illustrate the diversity of legume-based value chains and to discuss the conditions by which they can successfully meet the growing demand for legumes in the EU. The research is based on a qualitative survey of the value chain stakeholders in the case studies. Regarding organic legume-based value chains, the analysis reveals two types that depend on the stakeholder type at the launch of the value chain, the stakeholder’s primary objective in the chain, and the organic legume species involved. The first value chain type is launched by extension services with an aim of developing the organic production of a single legume species. The second type is launched by a stakeholder (processor or collector) acting further downstream in response to market demand for several legume species. A key success factor for these value chains is the ability of the launcher to ensure close coordination along the chain. To achieve this, several means and tools have been identified: the setting-up of a value chain development project, the implementation of contracting practices, production support programmes (technical assistance, financial support), and market support programmes (information sharing, regulation, facilitators).