Genomic‐Assisted Breeding to Accelerate Genetic Advance for Drought Tolerance in Finger Millet ( Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.)

Finger millet ( Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) is an underutilized crop with exceptional climate resilience and nutritional richness. Severe drought stress in finger millet leads to unpredictable yield losses, which threaten global food and nutritional security. Conventional breeding has historically enabled the development of climate‐resilient cultivars to address food and nutritional needs. However, its limited efficiency, reliance on environmental conditions, high labor demands, and lengthy timelines make it insufficient to keep pace with rising global food demands. Therefore, plant breeders need to integrate emerging technologies in the breeder’s tool kit to complement traditional breeding approaches for greater efficiency and to accelerate production of stress‐resilient and high‐yielding finger millet. This is evidently possible with recent technological advancements in genomics‐assisted breeding (GAB) through the development of chromosome‐scale reference genomes; innovations in molecular breeding tools such as quantitative traits loci mapping, genome‐wide association mapping, genomic selection (GS), and genome editing; and comparative and structural genomics. In GAB, genomic information of finger millet in combination with its phenomic resources is used to speed up plant breeding for drought tolerance. This review highlights current knowledge and progress on available tools that can be used in GAB, how these tools complement conventional breeding methods, and the challenges impeding GAB for drought tolerance in finger millet. From the review, GAB emerges as a powerful approach to enhance drought tolerance in finger millet, leveraging advanced genomic tools and techniques to identify and incorporate resistance traits. By utilizing GAB, new varieties of finger millet that can withstand drought and enhance food security and farmer livelihoods can be developed. The generated information will be helpful as guidance for finger millet breeders on strategies adoptable in the development of drought‐tolerant finger millet varieties.