Some crops extract nitrogen from the soil. Winged beans give back to the soil, to the systems, to life. Winged beans have exceptional nitrogen-fixing capacity, outperforming most tropical legumes. They excel as green manure, cover crops, and intercrops within banana, sugarcane, and maize systems. Their role in enhancing soil fertility and increasing organic matter makes them ideal allies in regenerative farming.

In a world facing climate volatility and overreliance on commodity crops, what if our most powerful tools for food system resilience have been quietly growing in backyard gardens all along? The winged bean—an underutilised crop with powerful nutritional and agroecological traits—may be more than a relic of tradition. It might just be a blueprint for the future.