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The world's food production will need to increase by up to 70% by 2050 to match the predicted population growth. Achieving this goal will be challenging due to the decreased availability of arable land, resulting from urbanization and land degradation. Soil salinity is a major factor contributing to the latter process. While some improvement in crop yields in saline soils may be achieved as a consequence of single gene transfers, the real progress may be achieved only via a painfully slow “pyramiding” of essential physiological traits. Given the time constraints, a safer solution to meet the 2050 challenge may be to find alternative crop and forage species for farming in salt-affected conditions and to restore salt-affected areas. This review focuses on the suitability of halophytes to become important components of 21st century farming systems. We provide a comprehensive summary of the current use of halophytes for …