Cereal crops provide 70% of the calorie needs for the poor consumers of the world. Green revolution heralded a significant jump in the world cereal production to feed the growing world population. Of late, the production and productivity of cereals is being challenged by many factors, viz., rapidly changing climate, depleting soil fertility and water resources, and evolution of virulent strains/races of pathogens and insect pests. Even though conventional breeding has played an essential role in crop improvement during the post-green revolution era, it is often empirical and involves lengthy labor-intensive processes. The application of genetic engineering, despite its potential, has been limited in crop improvement, mainly due to concerns regarding their biosafety and consumer acceptance. Genome editing is an efficient and versatile technique that can seamlessly integrate into and accelerate the cereal-breeding programs. In this chapter, we discuss the recent changes in pathogen populations that pose a challenge to cereal productivity, success stories of disease resistance development in cereal crops through genome editing, potential applications and issues in deployment of genome editing, and ways to address these issues.

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