dr. AA (Andries) Temme

I approach plant breeding as a design problem. We ask a lot of our crops: stable yields under a changing climate, benefits for pollinators and soil life, and the quality that food and biobased value chains need. Under the umbrella of integrative crop design, I combine plant physiology, ecology and genetics to work out which traits a crop needs to meet these goals together, and to turn that into roadmaps for more sustainable crop production. I apply this to underused crops and established ones alike, with a focus on protein crops for a more plant-based food system. Three large projects, described below, are where this comes together.

REAP2SOW
REAP2SOW (Resilient and Efficient Agricultural Proteins to Sustain Our World) is a five-year NWA-ORC project, running since 2025, in which researchers from several Dutch universities and research institutes work with farmers, breeders and food-chain partners towards a more plant-based and sustainable Dutch protein supply. The project centres on three underused protein crops, quinoa, white lupin and aardaker, and brings together crop breeding and physiology, soil biodiversity, consumer perception, food system modelling and agricultural history. I am one of the project coordinators and co-lead work package 1, where we build the genetic resources and high-throughput phenotyping tools needed to breed better protein crops, and work package 8, where we bring the results to farmers, policymakers and the public through citizen science, demo fields and educational outreach.

AGRI4POL
I contribute to the Horizon Europe project AGRI4POL (Promoting Sustainable Agriculture for Pollinators), which aims to transform agriculture into a positive force for (wild) pollinators by integrating crop genetics, agroecology, socio-economics, and policy. Within my work package, I focus on identifying and characterizing crop floral traits, such as scent, shape, and pollen/nectar quality, that influence pollinator attraction and health. Key target crops that are the focus of our research are faba bean, an important protein crop, and sunflower, an important oilseed crop. With this work I aim to support the development of pollinator-smart crop varieties, helping to enhance both biodiversity and crop performance. Our goal is to bring insect-pollination considerations into future breeding strategies for more resilient and sustainable farming systems.

FABAPUZZLE
FABAPUZZLE (Unlocking the Full Potential of Faba Bean for Climate-Resilient, Plant-Based Food), is a Dutch-Danish collaborative research project funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Plant2Food programme, that brings together partners across the faba bean value chain, from breeding and cultivation to processing and plant-based food production. The project aims to unlock the full potential of faba bean by improving yield stability, climate resilience, and food quality through integrated research on genetics, agronomy, and food functionality. As coordinator, I lead the scientific and strategic alignment across disciplines and countries, ensuring that insights from genomics, field trials, and food science come together to support the development of faba as a sustainable protein crop for future food systems.