Faba Puzzle: Strengthening the Value Chain for Plant-Based Foods - optimising the Potential of Faba Bean
Project Period: 2025 – 2027
Funding: Plant2Food
A stronger food production system requires solutions that contribute to the optimised cultivation of crops capable of delivering high quality and adapting to climate change. The project “Faba Puzzle: Optimising the Faba Bean Value Chain for Enhanced Quality, Quantity, and Climate-Resilience” addresses challenges related to faba bean production and further processing by developing solutions that strengthen the pathway from seed to food.
Challenges in Faba Bean Cultivation
The faba bean (Vicia faba) is an important crop in plant-based food production due to its high protein content. However, agriculture in Denmark and Europe faces issues such as unstable yields and drought sensitivity. These challenges are exacerbated by climate change and lead to dependency on imports. In order to optimise yield while maintaining the quality required by the food industry, solutions that cut across the entire value chain are needed.
In this project, the faba bean is used as a case study, but the knowledge generated will also be applicable to the development of improved plant-based foods more broadly.
Interdisciplinary Collaboration with Clear Solutions
The project aims to map the genetic, environmental, and agronomic factors affecting the faba bean’s drought resistance, yield stability, and food quality. Through advanced research and close collaboration between research institutions and industry partners, the project serves as a model for how an integrated approach can benefit the entire value chain.
This collaboration ensures that the results are relevant and useful for all stakeholders – from growers to food producers.
The Danish Technological Institute Contributes With:
- Field Trials: These are designed to uncover the interaction between environmental factors and farming practices, and their combined effect on yield and quality. We use large-scale heterogeneous trial areas with varied terrain and soil types, exposing faba beans to different levels of drought stress.
- Data Modelling Across the Value Chain: Data modelling is a central element of the Faba Puzzle project and is used to collect, analyse, and integrate data across the entire faba bean value chain. The project collects large amounts of data from greenhouse trials, field trials, measurements of enzyme activity, and analyses of food properties. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), these data are linked, making it possible to identify correlations and predict how genetic and agronomic factors influence yield, resilience, and quality. This approach enables the development of tools that can benefit plant breeders, farmers, and food producers alike by providing a better basis for decision-making. Data modelling also enables faster innovation and adaptation of new cultivation and breeding strategies. All data, models, and methods are shared openly, allowing other stakeholders to build upon the project’s results.
Project Outputs:
The project generates new knowledge and tools to make it easier to cultivate and breed faba beans that are more robust and of higher quality. The results are shared openly, so that farmers, food producers, and other interested parties can make use of them. The goal is to strengthen the production of sustainable, plant-based foods in Denmark and Europe.
Partners:
- Danish Technological Institute
- Wageningen University
- University of Copenhagen
- Sejet Plant Breeding
- HK Hornsyld
- Meelunie
- FLEX Fertilizer System
- SymbioMatch
- The Vegetarian Butcher