AS THE GLOBAL population races towards 9.7 billion by 2050, the pressure to meet rising food demand is expected to intensify. Historically, increased food production has come at the cost of unsustainable land and resource use, aggravating food and nutrition insecurity, especially under the escalating climate stress. This dynamic creates a vicious cycle wherein anthropogenic factors induce adverse climate change, which reduces crop yields, prompting intensified farming; this, in turn, increases greenhouse gas emissions.