SIGNIFICANCE: Recently, the agro-biotech industry has been driven by overcoming the limitations imposed by fluctuating environmental stress conditions on crop productivity. A common theme among (a)biotic stresses is the perturbation of the redox homeostasis.RECENT ADVANCES: As a strategy to engineer stress-tolerant crops, many approaches have been centered on restricting the negative impact of reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation.CRITICAL ISSUES: In this study, we discuss the scientific background of the existing redox-based strategies to improve crop performance and quality. In this respect, a special focus goes to summarizing the current patent landscape because this aspect is very often ignored, despite constituting the forefront of applied research.FUTURE DIRECTIONS: The current increased understanding of ROS acting as signaling molecules has opened new avenues to exploit redox biology for crop improvement required for sustainable food security.