On the last 20th December 2023 a participatory grass pea sowing activity took place at the UNL field facilities at Oeiras city near Lisboa, Portugal. 

During this event, citizens of different ages, but especially from the younger generations, got acquainted with the grass pea (Lathyrus sativus, Chícharo in Portuguese) NUC crop by observing plants and seeds, and by tasting some of its delicious pastry products. They were also introduced to the DIVINFOOD European project under which grass pea field experiments were locally established, to evaluate a segregating grass pea population for different agronomic and nutritional traits with the participation of citizen together with researchers in a citizen science approach.

These citizen scientists were also invited to try out two different grass pea sowing approaches: the traditional broadcasting of seed by hand or the more conventional line sowing also used by researchers in the nearby experimental plots.