Rye (Secale cereale) is a multi-purpose cereal crop for grain (for food, feed, and other by-products) and for use as a forage or cover crop.Rye is a climate-resilient crop that is grown in marginal environments, where it produces good grain yield without a significant yield penalty, with high quality and quantity of crude protein and other nutritional benefits. In marginal environments, rye is also used as a source of livestock feed.Rye is a nutritious grainthat contains 8–15% of protein, 55–65% of starch, and 15–25% of total dietary fiber (arabinoxylans,β-glucans, and fructans are the major constitutes of dietary fiber) with unique flavor and quality attributes.Consuming whole rye grain and its by-products has human health benefits, such as the risk reduction of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancers, gastrointestinal disorders, cholesterol levels, and type diabetes.Due to good nutritional value, human health benefits, and resilience to marginal environments, there is significant potential to improve the grain yield and nutritional quality as well as production potential for feed and/or forage quality of rye. Implementing conventional, modern (genomic selection) breeding and integrative breeding approaches are the most crucial strategies for developing market-oriented or farmer-benefit-oriented varieties for specific environments and increasing the genetic resources for sustainable uses.