Abstract: Global food supply faces major challenges due to population growth, global warming, secondary salinization of soils, and scarcity of freshwater resources.“Salt lake agriculture” offers a novel solution to this problem by using salt tolerant plants and animals and saline water to develop agriculture.This article reviews the research progress on halophytes in agriculture, focusing on halophytes as food, feed, and industrial raw materials.As halophytes contain high amounts of health-promoting secondary metabolites, new market demand for such crops has emerged.Salt lakes are abundant in China, and making the development of salt lake agriculture using salt-tolerant crops favorable.Based on the characteristics of China’s salt lake and saltwater resources, proposals for the development of salt lake agriculture have been put forward.