Abstract: Sweet potato is an important food crop and processing raw material in China. Sweet potato virus disease（SPVD） is the most destructive disease to sweet potato. This paper focused on the progress and challenges of sweet potato breeding in improving yield and resistance to SPVD. The loss of production due to sweet potato virus disease has a significant negative impact on the food security and income of the rural poor. The continued use of susceptible varieties, lack of high-yielding and early-maturing resistant varieties, and lack of effective control measures all contribute to low crop yields, disease accumulation, development, and persistence. Chemical and biological control methods are not effective against viral diseases, so the use of resistant varieties is still the most effective and cheapest method. Breeding for disease resistance is an important part of increasing yield and reducing the impact of sweet potato virus disease. This paper provided a theoretical basis for the progress and challenges of high yield breeding of sweet potato against sweet potato virus disease.