In response to the DCZ study on the value chain of soybeans in China and Germany, the DCZ authors were invited to participate in the fifth ‘Protein Paradoxes’ Workshop, organized by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) on 1 and 2 October.
The workshop was part of the ZALF research project ‘Protein Paradoxes’ on future sustainable protein supply under current challenges of climate change, a growing world population and changing consumption patterns. The event was attended by participants from various research institutions from Germany and other parts of Europe. In fact, due to the COVID-19 situation the workshop was organised as both a physical as well as an online event with about as many participants online as on-site in Berlin. Day 1 started with an introduction to the workshop by the project organisers, Prof. Bellingrath-Kimura, Dr. Mouratiadou and Dr. Reckling. It was continued by several presentations on the importance of legumes, such as pea, faba bean, lupin and soybean, in agricultural systems and human diets and on the methodology of the research framework which was applied in the project. Day 2 consisted of a group exercise with the aim to develop a scenario on future legume systems based on the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) as developed by Mitter et al. (2020). The groups worked on specific aspects of the legume system, such as production, consumption or global markets. Finally, the five scenarios which were developed by each group within their specific topic were presented and discussed – (1) agriculture on sustainable paths, (2) agriculture on established paths, (3) agriculture on separated paths, (4) agriculture on unequal paths and (5) agriculture on high-tech paths –. The outcomes were also documented and will be incorporated in phase 2 of the protein paradoxes project at ZALF.
Further information: www.leibniz-lebensmittel-und-ernaehrung.de/en/projects/protein-paradoxes.html
Mitter et al. (2020): Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems: The Eur-Agri-SSPs
