LegumeCHOICE: Realizing the underexploited potential of multi-purpose legumes towards improved livelihoods and a better environment in crop-livestock systems in East and Central Africa

Led by IITA, the Goal of the project is to improve food and nutrition security, reduce poverty, and enhance the production environment of smallholder farmers and rural populations, in particular women, through facilitation of the smart integration and use of multi-purpose legumes, providing food, protein, feed, fuel, and/or organic matter in crop-livestock systems.

The Purpose of the project is to provide knowledge and tools to farmers and development partners facilitating farmers to make rational decisions for enhancing short and long-term contributions of multi-purpose legumes to farmer livelihoods including aspects of legume production, input supply systems, and markets.

The project will deliver 4 Outputs: (i) Farming system diagnosis and related entry points for multi-purpose legumes in farming systems and synthesis of lessons learnt across all Action Sites, (ii) A suite of proven, farmer- and system-specific legume-based options for system intensification, (iii) LegumeCHOICE – a decision support framework for enhancing the contributions of legumes to farmer livelihoods, and (iv) Effective partnerships within Humidtropics R4D platforms facilitate and enabling environment for the dissemination of multi-purpose legumes.