Using Soybean Biodiversity for Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Systems Transformation

Agricultural biodiversity is central to building climate-resilient and sustainable food systems, yet global agriculture continues to rely heavily on a narrow spectrum of crops and genetic resources. This genetic bottleneck heightens vulnerability to climate extremes, soil degradation, and emerging pests and pathogens, challenges that increasingly threaten global food security. Soybean, one of the world’s most strategically important crops for food, feed, and industrial uses, exemplifies this vulnerability. Despite its global economic significance, soybean production remains dominated by uniform germplasm and monoculture-based systems that limit adaptability and reduce ecosystem resilience. Therefore, exploring and utilizing the full breadth of soybean genetic diversity is essential for strengthening global food security, enhancing ecological sustainability, and supporting resilient value chains. Our research explores extensive soybean germplasm resources, from wild relatives and landraces to elite breeding lines developed through conventional breeding, molecular tools, and AI-assisted predictive approaches, to create climate-resilient, high-yielding, heat-tolerant, and short-duration germplasm suitable for diverse agroecological zones. Through targeted trait introgression, genomic prediction, marker-based selection, and multi-environment testing, we have incorporated diversity-based improvements in drought tolerance, nitrogen fixation efficiency, resistance to major pests such as aphids and whiteflies, and enhanced seed nutritional quality. These advancements demonstrate how genetic biodiversity can be effectively translated into climate-smart phenotypes with strong stability and adaptability across contrasting production systems. Complementing these genetic innovations, we evaluate biodiversity-informed agronomic and ecological strategies, including soybean–sugarcane intercropping, regenerative soil management practices, and the optimization of ecosystem services. Evidence from Southeast Asia reveals significant gains in soil organic carbon, substantial reductions in synthetic nitrogen fertilizer requirements, improved water-use efficiency, and greater resilience to climatic variability. These outcomes underscore the global applicability of biodiversity-rich soybean systems for sustainable intensification and climate adaptation. Our findings highlight the potential of soybean biodiversity to reduce import dependency, enhance smallholder profitability, and make a meaningful contribution to the Kunming–Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets. This presentation offers an integrated research–policy–practice roadmap illustrating how soybean innovations emerging from Southeast Asia can serve as a scalable model for biodiversity-driven agricultural transformation worldwide.