Farmers around the world have recently experienced significant crop losses due to severe heat and drought. Such extreme weather events and the need to feed a rapidly growing population have raised concerns for global food security. While plant breeding has been very successful and has delivered today's highly productive crop varieties, the rate of genetic improvement must double to meet the projected future demands. Here we discuss basic principles and features of crop breeding and how modern technologies could efficiently be explored to boost crop improvement in the face of increasingly challenging production conditions.