Food and nutritional security are of prime importance for achieving zero hunger, as well as improved health and better income and livelihoods worldwide. Human population is increasing rapidly and is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. Therefore, providing sufficient, affordable, and nutritious food to all is already a major global challenge. According to recent predictions, agricultural production should increase by 60%, while half of the arable land is expected to be lost due to salinization. Additionally, the overall impact of climate change is associated with biotic and abiotic stresses, which may further impact global food security. The use of genomics technologies can help in precise and faster improvement of staple cereals and pseudocereals (future foods).

Staple crops, including rice, wheat, and maize, provide more than 50% of the global caloric intake, particularly in developing countries. Landraces, traditional cultivars, and wild relatives of these field crops are treasures of the “breeder’s priority traits”. Some of them are rich in vitamins, minerals (especially micronutrients such as iron and zinc), dietary fibre, and phytochemicals with antioxidant properties, and are a valuable source of biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Furthermore, neglected and underutilized species (NUS) including pseudocereals have gained interest in the past few years as they constitute a source of adaptation to marginal environments, in addition to providing excellent nutrition quality. Therefore, it is imperative to harness the potential of underutilized genetic variation of existing diversity with the help of genomics assisted breeding.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collate original research and review articles with a focus on multidisciplinary areas of genomics for the improvement of cereals and pseudocereal crops, with a special focus on marginal environments.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Development of improved crop varieties with enhanced nutrition and reduced levels of toxic elements as a sustainable and food-based approach to address health and nutritional disorders
• Breeding and genetic advances in phenotyping, systematic collection and characterization of germplasm, phylogenetic and diversity analysis, breeding and varietal development, G x E, methodologies/novel approaches, varietal dissemination, and success stories
• Advances in omics of food crops, molecular characterization, QTL, gene, marker Assisted breeding, genomic selection, bioinformatics applications, comparative genomics, transgenics, genome editing, methodologies/novel approaches
• Progress in trait discovery associated with nutrition (processes of accumulation, degradation, and interaction of minerals, vitamins, and toxins), resilience, and sustainability