A roadmap for UK pulses: nature, net zero and nutrition

Beans and pulses have the potential to support soil health, lower-carbon diets, and human nutrition - but despite these benefits, consumption and production in the UK remains low. A new Science-Policy project built a roadmap towards realising the benefits of pulses - for nature, net zero and nutrition - in practice in the UK. March 30, 2026

Written by Dr Jing Zhang

Beans and pulses are often presented as a simple solution — supporting soil health, enabling lower-carbon diets, and improving human nutrition. In practice, however, realising these benefits in the UK is far from straightforward. Current consumption remains low, with people in the UK eating less than 10 grams of beans and pulses per day on average. Where pulses are consumed, they are often in a limited range of products, and a large share is imported rather than grown domestically. This raises a key question:

How can the multiple benefits of pulses for nature, net zero and nutrition be realised in the UK in practice?

The BeanMeals project, part of the Transforming UK Food Systems programme, highlighted the potential of pulses to support healthier diets, lower environmental impacts, and local economic activity. At the same time, it showed that achieving these outcomes requires systemic innovation — and that progress remains fragmented across production, processing, markets and policy.

Building on the momentum of the BeanMeals project, a new Agile Science to Policy project led by Dr Jing Zhang, the Project and Knowledge Exchange lead at AGRIIH, moves beyond what could change to how change can be delivered. This work was a collaborative effort between the Food Systems Transformation Group at the Environmental Change Institute and the Agricultural Resilience Impact and Innovation Hub (AGRIIH), with facilitation support from Forum for the Future. The focus has shifted from understanding the role of pulses in the UK food system to asking what a 2035 vision could look like, and what needs to happen — across practice, policy and research — starting now to make that vision a reality.

From insights to a roadmap

The project set out to develop a UK pulses roadmap: a shared direction for how beans and pulses could contribute to nature recovery, net zero and improved nutrition.

This work combined rapid evidence synthesis, targeted stakeholder conversations, and two workshops bringing together actors across the food system.

The first workshop involved over 30 stakeholders from approximately 20 food system organisations, spanning agriculture, food businesses, civil society and policy. Participants worked together to define a shared 2035 direction — including ambitions for increased consumption aligned with dietary guidance and greater UK production — and to map backwards the actions required across practices, policy and research.

A key insight was that scaling pulses is not a single intervention. It requires coordinated change across the system — including investment in processing, shifts in dietary habits, and policy frameworks that make pulses a viable option for farmers and businesses.

Legumes and pulses have also been identified as a priority workstream within the AGRIIH. Building on earlier engagement, including a showcase event in January 2026 where we gathered strong interest from across the community, it was encouraging to see many of the same stakeholders return and continue the conversation in this project. This continuity has been important in moving from shared interest towards more coordinated thinking and action.

From roadmap to research agenda

A second workshop, held with researchers at the final Transforming UK Food Systems conference, focused on responding to the stakeholder co-created roadmap and aligning a research agenda with it.

Participants identified key research gaps and questions that need to be addressed to enable this transition. Across themes of land use, food-system coordination and diets, discussions highlighted that many barriers are not only practical, but also linked to gaps in knowledge — particularly around policy design, system interactions, trade-offs, and viable pathways for scaling pulses.

What comes next

Releasing the potential of pulses will require stronger coordination across sectors, clearer policy signals, and a more robust evidence base. The roadmap and emerging research agenda aim to support this by providing a shared direction and identifying where collective effort is needed.

We are now working to synthesise these insights and feed them into ongoing discussions with policymakers. The project is already in dialogue with DEFRA and relevant agencies across the UK nations, with the aim of ensuring that pulses are more clearly embedded in future food, farming and climate strategies.

This research was supported by the Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School and the Natural Environment Research Council as part of the Changing the Environment Programme (NERC grant reference number NE/W004976/1).

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