Food options for the Riftborn

I recently started a Riftborn game in ES2, and while it's generally been a blast, I've noticed something - because the Riftborn population grows through building new pops instead of growth through food production, I find myself unwilling to research or invest in anything food-related. When allocating skills for my heroes, I never grab anything that impacts food production, because even though the minor faction pops in my empire need it, the majority of my population are extradimensional robots that wouldn't touch food with a 10-foot pole. So, to fix this problem, I have two ideas to either eliminate this issue, or bend it to the Riftborn's benefit.

The first of these ideas is what I call "Cleansing". Cleansing is an extreme measure, similar to the Harmony's purification ability from ES1. Once you research a particular late-game tech, you are given the option to "Cleanse" your planets, transforming them into a special "Cleansed" planet type which has no food production, but exemplary IDS and a happiness bonus for Riftborn citizens on it. This process has a couple drawbacks, though - any non-Riftborn population will be killed in the process, with a temporary happiness loss being imposed for each person killed this way, and the amount of production required to Cleanse a planet is incredibly high.

The other idea I have is in a similar vein, but is much simpler: give the Riftborn a faction-specific Law with high influence upkeep which converts half of all food produced into science, as the Riftborn create "Clean Zones" on their planets, devoid of life, so that scientists can focus on their studies instead of being distracted by all the disgusting life outside.