Climate change has emerged as one of the most critical challenges of the twenty-first century, generating profound impacts on global food security, natural resource sustainability, and the resilience of agricultural systems. These challenges are particularly severe in arid and semi-arid regions, where limited water availability, increasing drought frequency, land degradation, and socioeconomic constraints amplify the vulnerability of food systems. Northeastern Iran, especially Mashhad County, represents a typical example of such regions, where declining groundwater resources, rapid population growth, and increasing climatic pressures have created significant challenges for agricultural production and food security. Under these conditions, transitioning toward sustainable and climate-resilient food systems requires the identification and prioritization of Climate-Smart Food (CSF) options that are not only environmentally sustainable but also socially acceptable, economically viable, and practically implementable. Although previous studies have increasingly investigated climate-smart agriculture and sustainable food systems, many have focused on individual products or specific sustainability dimensions, while limited attention has been given to the simultaneous evaluation of diverse climate-smart food alternatives within a comprehensive decision-making framework.

This study aims to develop and apply an integrated Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) framework for identifying and prioritizing climate-smart food options suitable for semi-arid environments. To achieve this objective, a hybrid decision-support model combining the Best–Worst Method (BWM) and the Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) approach was developed and applied in Mashhad County, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran. The proposed framework enables the determination of the relative importance of evaluation criteria and the subsequent ranking of alternative climate-smart food options based on their overall performance across multiple environmental, social, economic, and implementation dimensions. Data were collected through literature review, field investigations, structured interviews, and expert questionnaires. A panel of thirteen experts, including academic researchers from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad and specialists from governmental organizations related to agriculture, environmental protection, and natural resource management, participated in the evaluation process. The use of an expert-based approach allowed the integration of scientific knowledge and practical experience relevant to climate adaptation and sustainable food planning in semi-arid regions.

In the first stage of the analysis, six evaluation criteria were identified and weighted using the BWM approach: climate adaptability, reduction of environmental impacts, social acceptability, economic opportunities creation, implementation feasibility, and legal and regulatory compliance. The results indicated that climate adaptability was the most influential criterion, with a weight of 0.230. This finding highlights that, under semi-arid conditions, the ability of a food option to withstand climatic stresses such as drought, water scarcity, rising temperatures, and rainfall variability is the primary factor determining its suitability. The second most important criterion was social acceptability (weight = 0.205), demonstrating that climate-smart food innovations must be compatible with consumer preferences, cultural patterns, dietary habits, and local acceptance conditions to achieve successful adoption. Implementation feasibility (weight = 0.188) ranked third, emphasizing the importance of technological capacity, infrastructure availability, institutional support, and practical applicability in regional food systems. Economic opportunities creation, reduction of environmental impacts, and legal and regulatory compliance also contributed to the evaluation process, although they received relatively lower weights compared with the three dominant criteria.

In the second stage, the EDAS method was applied to rank sixteen climate-smart food alternatives, including drought-tolerant crops, indigenous climate-adaptive crops, low-energy agricultural products, sustainable aquaculture systems, renewable-energy-based food production, low-waste fermented foods, plant-based dietary options, biofortified foods, and emerging food technologies. The results demonstrated that foods produced using renewable energy sources achieved the highest ranking, with an appraisal score of 0.9737. This alternative represents a production characteristic rather than a specific food product, indicating that reducing dependence on fossil fuels through renewable energy integration can improve the sustainability performance of various food production and processing pathways. The second-ranked option was sustainable and climate-friendly aquaculture, followed by climate-resilient and drought-tolerant crops. These results suggest that food-system pathways capable of reducing pressure on water resources, improving resource-use efficiency, and enhancing resilience to climatic variability are particularly appropriate for semi-arid environments.

Conversely, emerging technologies such as synthetic foods and cultivated (lab-grown) meats received the lowest ranking among the evaluated alternatives. Despite their potential environmental advantages in future food systems, their relatively low position in this study reflects limitations associated with social acceptance, technological readiness, implementation challenges, and contextual feasibility within the studied region. Therefore, the findings demonstrate that the prioritization of climate-smart food options should not rely solely on environmental performance or technological innovation but should consider the interaction between climatic suitability, social conditions, economic opportunities, and implementation capacity.

The developed BWM–EDAS framework provides a systematic decision-support tool for policymakers, agricultural planners, and food-system stakeholders seeking to design sustainable and climate-resilient food strategies in vulnerable regions. By integrating multiple sustainability dimensions within a unified evaluation structure, the proposed approach enables the identification of context-specific solutions while accounting for trade-offs among competing criteria. The findings contribute to the broader objectives of sustainable development, particularly Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 (Zero Hunger), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and 13 (Climate Action). Furthermore, the proposed framework has potential applicability beyond Mashhad County and can support decision-making processes in other semi-arid regions facing similar challenges related to climate change, water scarcity, and food-system vulnerability.