© 2019 Brivery Siamabele. This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 3.0 license. American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences Literature Reviews Soya Beans Production in Zambia: Opportunities and Challenges Brivery Siamabele Pan African University, Institute of Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, Yaounde Cameroon Article history Received: 05-02-2019 Revised: 10-05-2019 Accepted: 13-05-2019 Email: briverys@gmail.com Abstract: The soya bean production opens doors of opportunities for Zambian farmers. Notably, the climate in Zambia is largely favourable for soya production and the arable land is vast enough to accommodate future expansion. Most importantly, soya is a very profitable crop. On the other hand, there are some challenges which affect soya production such as poor soils aggravated by low fertilizer use, poorly developed agricultural advisory services and farmers’ inability to access favourable input and outputs markets. Moreover, farmers predominantly find improved soya seeds expensive. It is therefore expedient for policymakers and the government to join hands to strengthen the linkage between small-scale farmers, commercial producers and the market to assist them to commercialize their products in full scale. In order to address these challenges, the authors suggest that the Zambian government should put farming inputs (such as inoculum seeds), post-harvest management lessons and some necessities at the disposal of farmers. Moreover, the government has to be serious about improving country’s infrastructure especially rural roads to enhance soya bean trade. Lastly, the policymakers should take the responsibility of orchestrating soya trade to avoid trade distrust which results from rigged scales. If these recommendations are taken seriously soya bean production is likely to speed up economic growth and alleviate poverty in Zambia. Keywords: Soya Beans, Livelihoods, Poverty, Food Security Introduction In the early stages of development, the growth of the agricultural sector is important for achieving development objectives (Diao et al., 2010). Therefore, for a developing country like Zambia, growth in the agricultural sector is the clearest avenue through which sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction can be achieved. It is widely accepted that broad-based growth in agriculture incomes is essential to stimulate economic growth in primarily agrarian societies (Diao and Hazell et al., 2010). Consequently, Zambia’s agriculture sector has been identified as key to unlocking economic growth and it provides the main support for Zambia’s rural economy. In other words, when growth comes from sectors that most poor people work in, there is a much higher likelihood to address poverty. Zambia is moving towards economic diversification and this includes the introduction of cash crops that can improve the livelihoods of the small scale farmers in rural areas. Soya beans are one of the cash crops being promoted by the government of Zambia among small scale farmers. Most of the Zambian small scale farmers on the Eastern province and Luapula, to mention but a few, have been involved in the soya beans production and this leads to the aim of this paper. It is, therefore, necessary to look at the soya beans production in Zambia. Focusing on the opportunities that are pulling the farmers into the crop production and establish challenges faced by the small scale farmers in growing soya beans in Zambia. Background of Soya Beans Production in Zambia Globally, soya beans area has expanded rapidly over the last decades, from 26.5 million hectares in 1966 to