Big chance for small crops

KWS sees enormous potential for peas and other protein plants

Legumes are on everyone's lips: In the course of a more plant-based nutrition, the demand for peas and other legumes is steadily increasing.

KWS also sees enormous potential for peas and other protein crops and already has a large potential genetic pool of pea varieties. The company started breeding yellow grain peas back in the 1980s and is now leading in France – the largest and most important European market.

France is home to about one-quarter of the 800,000 total hectares of cultivated land for peas in Europe. Other target markets include the UK and Germany. KWS also conducts pea trials in a number of countries, including the US, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Spain.

Developing new pea varieties takes an average of about seven years, starting with the initial crossing continuing to market maturity. In the future, breeding activities related to the pea will be further expanded.

KWS’s yellow peas are suitable both for human consumption and for use as animal feed. They are threshed directly in the field and marketed to farms through multipliers.

1 / 6

An increasing number of farmers are growing peas and other legumes.
2 / 6

The global market for protein crops is growing.
3 / 6

KWS has been breeding peas since the 1980s and has a high potential genetic pool of pea varieties.
4 / 6

Yellow grain peas of KWS are suitable for human consumption as well as for animal feed.
5 / 6

Nina Blijdorp, Product Management Oats and Peas
6 / 6

Gerhard “Toni“ Ackermann, employee of the KWS breeding station in Seligenstadt