Italy is one of the biggest producer of legumes in Europe due to its highest production of soya beans. Even though soya bean is worldwide classified as oil crop, botanically it belongs to legume species. Beside soya, fresh beans, faba beans and fresh peas are the main produced grain legumes in Italy. Italy is the leader in production of fodder legumes in Europa. According to EUROSTAT, the main legume crop for whole plant harvesting here is alfalfa (Lucerne) with almost 21 Mio. tones in 2016. While the market of soya beans is better known and more developed, those for the other legumes remain less known. Asymmetrical information between the actors in such niche markets is a hurdle that should not be underestimated.
This report is part of the transdisciplinary EU research project "LegValue". The present study describes the markets of the main growth legumes. Unfortunately, no price quotations were identified to allow a price analysis of grain legumes in Italy. This market information could be useful for the current and future actors in this sector. A mixed-method approach based on quantitative and qualitative analyses was used in this study. The parameters used for the quantitative analyses are production, domestic consumption, imports and exports.

2019. The market of grain legumes in Italy – First results of the EU-project LegValue. Legume Hub. https://www.legumehub.eu