Opinion: How to sustainably tackle malnutrition in Africa? Beans is how

African consumers have long appreciated the value of beans as a low-cost, versatile and nutritious ingredient. But leveraging beans to address malnutrition more equitably across the entire continent requires a coordinated drive to ensure more Africans can grow, access, and consume these superfoods. In western Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi, people eat more than 30 kilograms, or about 100 grams per day per capita — some of the highest consumption levels in the world. Yet the benefits of beans as a rich source of protein, iron, and other micronutrients are spread unevenly across the continent. In Zambia, for example, consumption is relatively low at just 10kg per capita per year. Meanwhile, in Kenya, the price and availability of beans fluctuate because the country has a production deficit. The country harvests just under 80% of its annual beans consumption a year, leaving a shortfall of over 20% that must be imported to meet the country’s annual consumption needs of roughly 879,000 metric tons. Parts of the population — as much as half — miss out on the high-quality and affordable nutrition provided by beans and other legumes. This is starting to change, thanks to scientific advances and breeding programs that have produced higher-yielding bean varieties, such as Kenya’s nyota, developed by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, in partnership with the global bean program of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT through the support of the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance, or PABRA. To date, PABRA members have released more than 650 new varieties that are more resilient to climate extremes, making them easier to grow and therefore boosting homegrown yields to meet demand. Many of these new varieties are also enriched with additional micronutrients to help improve their nutritional value, including higher iron, zinc, and other culinary and consumer-demanded qualities, for instance, including short cooking times and high palatability. Leveraging the potential of strong beans supply chains across the continent can help to address malnutrition more equitably. “Beans is How,” a global campaign to double bean consumption, is addressing this by uniting PABRA and other partners to raise awareness about the benefits of beans for both people and the planet. Starting with Kenya as a test case for East Africa, the movement aims to unlock the full benefits of beans for healthy and sustainable diets with a road map that includes promoting the environmental and nutritional benefits among consumers while also enabling greater levels of production. For Kenya, this starts with closing up the productivity gap by further investing in developing improved varieties and scaling up their adoption among farmers. Improving domestic bean production, through more resilient and higher-yielding bean varieties, is a critical step toward driving up consumption because it increases supply to the market while reducing the need for imports — stabilizing prices, and making beans both more available and more affordable. Farmers who adopted nyota beans, for example, were able to harvest more than 1,800 kilograms despite erratic weather, when they would normally expect to harvest just 500 kilograms. Within four years of nyota’s first seed release in 2017, grain production reached more than 50,000 metric tons, or 8% of Kenya’s annual bean production. This is why the “Beans is How” strategy includes measures to support farmers to adopt new varieties of higher-yielding beans, which are also naturally able to source and convert nitrogen from soil bacteria, making them ideal to grow on depleted land. At the same time, more consumers in Kenya and across Africa must be persuaded of the benefits of eating beans to help drive demand for new, more nutritious varieties. Part of this involves overcoming the barriers around relatively high prices and long cooking times, particularly for dry beans. Public health campaigns are a core element for raising awareness of the convenience and nutritional value of precooked beans and products such as soups and flour. These campaigns are aimed at the most nutritionally vulnerable groups, including children, pregnant women and new mothers, and factored into meal procurement policies in schools, hospitals, and other public settings. The campaign is also encouraging restaurants, caterers, schools, and other food service providers to ensure beans are on the menu as a way to make beans more visible, accessible, and desirable. With improved production levels and a ready market, more African countries can then also participate in and benefit from continental trade initiatives such as bean corridors, which link regional production, distribution, and consumption hubs to streamline the African bean value chain. For example, the trade potential in the Tanzania Yellow Bean Corridor alone exceeds $200 million per year from about 200,000 tons of yellow beans. Countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania have already rapidly expanded domestic bean production and benefited from a more robust market to meet increased consumption needs. With the right investments, partnerships and policies, Africa can rise to the challenge of developing a thriving and inclusive value chain that tackles food, nutrition, and economic insecurity all with the simple bean.