The challenge of producing food for a rapidly increasing population is daunting. In spite of huge investment in irrigation sector, rain fed areas contribute a major proportion of agricultural production of India. As it is not possible to use the entire cultivable land under irrigation due to practical and resource limitations, there is an urgent need to improve the productivity of the existing cultivable areas. In the present paper, we discussed herein about the problems, prospects and significant options available to improve productivity of rain fed areas. Research areas which may be taken up for experimentation in the rain fed farming development and thereby improving the total productivity of rain fed farming have also been discussed.