Legacy Legumes: Trees of Renewal and Abundance (PDF edition)

Shaped by megafauna beginning around 25 million years ago, bean trees with sizeable sweet fruit, collectively called Legacy Legumes, have been pillars of the nutritional and ecological foundations for humanity's rise to prominence on planet Earth.

The forests of these trees covered the tropical west coasts of the Americas, facilitating migration and the formation of stable societies that built pyramids contemporary with those of Egypt. During the colonial era, Spanish cowboys and Catholic grape farmers incorporated these trees into their production systems. More recently, Legacy Legumes have gone out of fashion and, in some cases, are actively persecuted, and their mismanagement has led to disastrous consequences. Yet Legacy Legumes have the potential to regenerate all of Earth's salty and degraded soils while providing enough protein for everyone.

Through the story of introducing one of these trees into Hawai‘i, we discover the other Legacy Legumes, their role in arid ecosystems, and human history past, present, and future.

By Neil Logan. Foreword by Gary Nabhan. 296 pages, full colour, with clickable references and chapter bookmarks. Published by FARM Center, Kapa‘au, Hawai‘i.

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