From production to plate: strengthening legume utilisation in Malawi’s food system

In Malawi, legumes are widely cultivated but not consistently incorporated into routine diets. Drawing on a targeted evidence-informed narrative synthesis of Malawi-specific literature and carefully delimited comparative African evidence, this perspective argues that the gap between production and consumption is best understood as a food-systems problem rather than as a production problem alone. Groundnut ( Arachis hypogaea ), soybean ( Glycine max ), common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris ), pigeon pea ( Cajanus cajan ), Bambara groundnut ( Vigna subterranea ), and cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata ) differ in food-system role, preparation requirements, nutritional contribution, and level of documentation in Malawi. Grain legume routine use is constrained when harvests leave the household food system through sale, when retained grains remain costly to prepare, when products are poorly aligned with staple-centred meals, and when consumers cannot repeatedly access safe, affordable, recognisable, and trusted legume foods. We identify four linked pathways for strengthening legume utilisation: retention or reacquisition for food, transformation into usable forms, integration into familiar meals, and reliable consumer access. These pathways clarify how agricultural availability can be converted into repeated dietary use and point to a policy agenda that links processing, culinary adaptation, quality assurance, and market development to Malawi’s staple-centred diets and evolving food environments.