Soybean (Glycine max) is one of the most important crop plants for seed protein and oil content, and for its capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen through symbioses with soil-borne microorganisms. We sequenced the 1.1-gigabase genome by a whole-genome shotgun approach and integrated it with physical and high-density genetic maps to create a chromosome-scale draft sequence assembly. We predict 46,430 protein-coding genes, 70% more than Arabidopsis and similar to the poplar genome which, like soybean, is an ancient polyploid (palaeopolyploid). About 78% of the predicted genes occur in chromosome ends, which comprise less than one-half of the genome but account for nearly all of the genetic recombination. Genome duplications occurred at approximately 59 and 13 million years ago, resulting in a highly duplicated genome with nearly 75% of the genes present in multiple copies. The two duplication events were followed by gene diversification and loss, and numerous chromosome rearrangements. An accurate soybean genome sequence will facilitate the identification of the genetic basis of many soybean traits, and accelerate the creation of improved soybean varieties.

The United Nations declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (grain legumes) under the banner ‘nutritious seeds for a sustainable future’. A second green revolution is required to ensure food and nutritional security in the face of global climate change. Grain legumes provide an unparalleled solution to this problem because of their inherent capacity for symbiotic atmospheric nitrogen fixation, which provides economically sustainable advantages for farming. In addition, a legume-rich diet has health benefits for humans and livestock alike. However, grain legumes form only a minor part of most current human diets, and legume crops are greatly under-used. Food security and soil fertility could be significantly improved by greater grain legume usage and increased improvement of a range of grain legumes. The current lack of coordinated focus on grain legumes has compromised human health, nutritional security and sustainable food production.

Climate change affects agricultural productivity worldwide. Increased prices of food commodities are the initial indication of drastic edible yield loss, which is expected to increase further due to global warming. This situation has compelled plant scientists to develop climate change-resilient crops, which can withstand broad-spectrum stresses such as drought, heat, cold, salinity, flood, submergence and pests, thus helping to deliver increased productivity. Genomics appears to be a promising tool for deciphering the stress responsiveness of crop species with adaptation traits or in wild relatives toward identifying underlying genes, alleles or quantitative trait loci. Molecular breeding approaches have proven helpful in enhancing the stress adaptation of crop plants, and recent advances in high-throughput sequencing and phenotyping platforms have transformed molecular breeding to genomics-assisted breeding (GAB). In view of this, the present review elaborates the progress and prospects of GAB for improving climate change resilience in crops, which is likely to play an ever increasing role in the effort to ensure global food security.

To ensure the food security of future generations and to address the challenge of the ‘no hunger zone’ proposed by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), crop production must be doubled by 2050, but environmental stresses are counteracting this goal. Heat stress in particular is affecting agricultural crops more frequently and more severely. Since the discovery of the physiological, molecular, and genetic bases of heat stress responses, cultivated plants have become the subject of intense research on how they may avoid or tolerate heat stress by either using natural genetic variation or creating new variation with DNA technologies, mutational breeding, or genome editing. This review reports current understanding of the genetic and molecular bases of heat stress in crops together with recent approaches to creating heat-tolerant varieties. Research is close to a breakthrough of global relevance, breeding plants fitter to face the biggest challenge of our time.

Summary: Agriculture is now facing the ‘perfect storm’ of climate change, increasing costs of fertilizer and rising food demands from a larger and wealthier human population. These factors point to a global food deficit unless the efficiency and resilience of crop production is increased. The intensification of agriculture has focused on improving production under optimized conditions, with significant agronomic inputs. Furthermore, the intensive cultivation of a limited number of crops has drastically narrowed the number of plant species humans rely on. A new agricultural paradigm is required, reducing dependence on high inputs and increasing crop diversity, yield stability and environmental resilience. Genomics offers unprecedented opportunities to increase crop yield, quality and stability of production through advanced breeding strategies, enhancing the resilience of major crops to climate variability, and increasing the productivity and range of minor crops to diversify the food supply. Here we review the state of the art of genomic‐assisted breeding for the most important staples that feed the world, and how to use and adapt such genomic tools to accelerate development of both major and minor crops with desired traits that enhance adaptation to, or mitigate the effects of climate change.