Soybean
The soybean is the world's protein and oil workhorse — a warm-season legume that fixes its own nitrogen and thrives in the same humid-summer climates as maize. Two regions dominate: the US Midwest and the vast new croplands of Brazil and Argentina.
How it grows
Soybean grows in pods held above the ground on a bushy plant.
What it’s worth to grow
Farm-gate value = the price farmers are paid per kilogram (FAOSTAT producer prices, median of 298 positive country-year observations spanning 2018–2024). It tracks how costly and labour-intensive a crop is to grow — almonds and vanilla command a premium; potatoes and cereals are cheap staples.
Where Earth's climate suits soybean
Climatic suitability only — scored for every 0.5° of the planet from this crop's temperature and rainfall tolerances (FAO EcoCrop) on AgroClim 1991–2025 normals (AgERA5 temperature, CHIRPS/ERA5 rainfall). It shows where the rain-fed climate permits the crop, not where it is grown today; irrigation lets many crops thrive in drier country than the map suggests (California, Egypt, the Indus and Nile).
Who grows it — and where the climate merely allows it
The climate where it grows
— mean monthly temperature ▍ monthly rainfall — averaged over the actual growing areas (the suitable cells) inside each country, so it reflects where the crop is really grown, not the national average. AgroClim 1991–2025 normals. The 🌧 badge is the last 3 months’ rainfall as a percentage of the 1991–2020 CHIRPS normal (through 2025-12) — the current drought/deluge signal.
Climate envelope · FAO EcoCrop
Deep bar = optimal range; pale bar = absolute tolerance. Beyond the pale bar the crop fails. Latitude tolerance ±52° · soil pH 4.5–8.4.
Growing calendar & hazards
A frost-free summer annual, sown in late spring and harvested in autumn; in South America it is often double-cropped after or before maize.
- Late-summer drought. Pod-fill in August (or February in the south) is the moisture-critical window.
- Frost. Frost at either end of the season ends it.
- Rust. Warm, humid conditions spread Asian soybean rust.