From the well-known beans, lentils, chickpeas and peas to the lesser-known kinds like tarwi beans and adzuki beans, pulses have the potential to improve everything from soil health to healthy diets.
They are the dried edible seeds of legumes both cultivated for food and feed. They are pulses, and if you didn’t know already, they have the potential to transform our agrifood systems. Colourful and flavourful, small yet powerful, pulses include the well-known beans, lentils, chickpeas and peas but there are also the lesser-known kinds like tarwi beans and adzuki beans. Pulses not only boost our food security and nutrition, but they also nourish our soils and benefit the environment.
This 10 February, World Pulses Day, the Food and Agriculture of the United Nations (FAO) is highlighting the potential that these small and powerful seeds have to improve everything from soil health to healthy diets.
Here are four ways in which pulses nourish soils and soils nourish us:
1. Pulses make essential nutrients available to soils
2. Pulses help maintain soil biodiversity
3. Pulses enhance soil structure
4. Pulses help to mitigate and adapt to climate change
