Soya beans have been an important food crop in China and other Asian countries for thousands of years. Nowadays, the seeds are used cooked as a vegetable (vegetable soya, green soya bean, edamame), or processed into soya milk, soya flour or tofu; they are also used as an emulsifier in the production of cooking oil, margarine, baked goods and much more.

The soya bean is also an important protein animal feed, which is mainly used in toasted, pressed or extracted form (toasted soya bean, soya press cake or soya extraction meal). These products are high-quality feedstuffs, as soya bean protein has a high biological value. To improve the digestibility and utilisation of the protein, the beans need to be heat treated, for example by toasting.

The home of the parent plant, Glycine soja, also known as Glycine ussuriensis, is East Asia. Today, the main cultivation areas of the cultivated form, Glycine max, are in the USA, Brazil and Argentina.

In Austria, the area under soya bean cultivation in 2024 was around 87,412 hectares, an estimated half of which is used directly for food production. This acreage makes Austria the seventh largest soya producer in Europe.

The soya bean prefers a warm and humid climate. In Austria, it thrives best in the (south) east of the country and therefore copes well with the changing climate.

For good growth, the plants need loose, well-aerated, slightly acidic to neutral (pH value 6.5 to 7.5) soils with good water retention capacity. The water requirement is particularly high during flowering and grain formation.

Winter and summer cereals as well as grain maize are particularly suitable as previous crops. As soya beans are not very competitive due to their slow juvenile development, it is particularly important that the preceding crop suppresses late-germinating weeds and does not promote uncontrollable nitrogen release. Although the soya bean is self-compatible, it should only be cultivated every four to five years in succession due to the risk of the fungal disease Sclerotinia. The same sequence applies to other legume species such as beans, clovers, peas, etc. and other crops susceptible to sclerotinia (oilseed rape, sunflower, several vegetable species). As a nitrogen collector and a plant with a good root system for improving soil structure, the soya bean itself is a good preceding crop.

Sowing time is between mid-April and early/mid-May at a soil temperature of 10 °C. Sowing can be carried out with a seed drill or a precision drill.

The soya bean lives in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing nodule bacteria (Rhizobium japonicum), which must be applied to the seed when the soya bean is first cultivated. They cover the plant's high nitrogen requirement. Normally, therefore, no nitrogen fertilisation is necessary; higher nitrogen doses even impair the activity of the nodule bacteria.

Finally, the time of harvest depends on the variety and weather conditions and is between mid-September and the end of October. Maturity begins with the yellowing of the leaves, which eventually dry up and fall off. The beans become round and firm and lie freely in the pod (rattle when shaken). Harvesting usually takes place a few days after leaf fall using a combine harvester, whereby the beans should have a water content of 12 to 16 %. The average yield is between 1,800 and 3,000 kg/ha.