In Malawi, where most of the population relies on agriculture and is considered “small farmers”, better characterizing the diversity of agricultural holdings and the drivers of their transformation is key to inform policy makers and design programs better fitted to the diverse needs and capacities. The World Agriculture Watch (WAW) was recently set up as a consortium of several institutions (FAO, IFAD, the French Government and Cirad). WAW aims to inform an inclusive policy dialogue on the diversity of agricultural systems, structural changes affecting them and their impacts. The first step of WAW is to propose an original conceptual framework based on a systemic approach and a common methodology to define agricultural holdings. In February 2013, WAW launched a participatory exploratory work to revise WAW Methodological Framework (WAW 2012) and test it on several case studies. This case study on Malawi complements other case studies currently testing the international typology. The aim of this report is to provide a preliminary typology of agricultural holdings in Malawi that could usefully contribute to raising the interest of researchers and policy makers for analytical understanding and political lobbying on the diversity of farm households. The specific objectives of this report are to contribute to the WAW reflections on the international methodology but also to Malawi internal policy debates. To do so we provide a small manageable number of household types, which are preliminary for two reasons. The first one is that part of the agricultural holdings of Malawi are not represented in our analysis: large-scale agricultural estates, which are part of the dual agricultural system that Malawi inherited from the colonial administration and perpetuated after independence, are absent from the data we used. Secondly, the household types need to be enriched with further statistical analysis of the existing database, tested with local stakeholder consultations and deepened with field studies in Malawi.