Soybean (Glycine max) is one of the most important protein sources in human food and animal feed. Europe is highly dependent on the import of soybean (>16 million tons of soybeans and >17.5 million tons of soybean meal imported in EU27+ in 2020). About 70% is imported from Brazil and Argentina, where soybean cultivation has been and still is one of the main drivers of deforestation. Establishing European soybean production at scale may not only help curtail deforestation in crucial ecosystems such as the Amazon, Cerrado and Gran Chaco, but would also reduce Europe’s dependence on soybean imports, reduce the associated carbon footprint and facilitate the ongoing transition to more plant protein and less animal protein in the European diets. However, the current commercially available rhizobial inoculants needed to establish N-fixing nodules on soybean roots are based on non-endemic rhizobial strains that are poorly adapted to local environmental conditions, causing soybeans cultivated in NW Europe to have suboptimal yield and a protein content that is too low according to major food industry standards. In a previous VIB Grand Challenge (GC) project involving a trapping experiment in >1000 citizens’ gardens in Flanders, Belgium, several local rhizobial strains were isolated that form nitrogen-fixing nodules on soybean roots. As of now, a patent application has been submitted on 2 strains (with option to add a third) and the first controlled field trial results indicate that soybean inoculation with these strains may increase seed yield and protein content compared to a commercial inoculant. Results are however variable across field trials, indicating the need for more trials in a wider range of growing environments.  In addition, none of the strains have been tested thus far on commercial farms. In the soy 2.0  project, we will validate the use of 5 promising rhizobial strains trapped in the previous GC project (i.e. the 3 aforementioned strains and 2 additional ones) to increase the yield, protein content, biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) and profitability of soybean in realistic agricultural production conditions.