Studying the Villagers Semantic Perception of the Food Security Concept

The main objective of this qualitative research, which was done phenomenological, was to identify the definitions and strategies of food security among rural households. The study population was the rural households of Divandarreh city which experienced a high level of food insecurity. The key informant people were identified through snowball method. The data were gathered by deep interviews and direct observation. In addition, photos and documents were also used. The data were analyzed by Colaizzi method. Based on the results, rural households had a different perception about food security. After analyzing, the results were categorized in 21 codes. At the next step, the strategies for maintaining food security were discussed by the rural households, which eventually, 29 strategies were identified. Finally, according to the nature of the extracted strategies, four clusters including short-term strategies (7 codes), medium-term strategies (9 codes), long-term strategies (11 codes), and non-response strategies (2 codes) were formed.