mind that agronomic practices used for realizing high productivity do not adversely affect the environment. Improvement in cereal production in the past was also achieved through the use of alien genetic variation available in the wild relatives of these cereals, so that conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources is another important area, which is currently receiving the attention of plant breeders. The work leading to increased cereal production in the past received strong support from basic research on understanding the cereal genomes, which need to be manipulated to yield more from low inputs without any adverse effects as above. Through these basic studies, it also became fairly apparent that the genomes of all cereals are related and were derived from the same lineage, million of years ago.