The quality of crop establishment is affected by several biotic and abiotic factors. The adverse impact of these factors can be mitigated through crop management practices. Development of practical management solutions may help farmers to reduce their production costs and thus increase yield. Here, we report practical and sustainable methods that aim at improving the establishment quality and yield of three key cereal crops viz. maize, rice and wheat, particularly suitable for drought-prone regions. We found that some new methods including printed sowing, variable-rate seeding, night-time sowing as well as other relatively old methods such as bed- and raised-bed sowing, mulching, incorporation of organic matters into the seedbed etc. allow to improve crop establishment and yield while increasing water use efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is no a ‘one-size-fits-all’ method to improve cereal crop establishment and that the potential adoption of such methods by farmers may be affected by a number of factors, including the farm size and the crop type. We highlight that the methods presented herein have been successfully tested only for maize, rice and wheat and across limited pedo-climatic conditions. Consequently, there is a knowledge gap about the potential of these methods to implement for a broader range of crops and cropping systems across drought-prone regions of the world. This will finally improve our understanding of the overall effectiveness of these methods in fostering crop establishment, early stand development and yield.