Designing a Food Security Pattern for Rural Households in Ilam Province of Iran: Application of Grounded Theory

The main purpose of this study was to identify and develop a model for food security of rural households by applying the grounded theory approach. It was an applied research in terms of the objective and a mixed exploratory study in terms of data collection method. The participants consisted of all the experts familiar with food security issues (including nutrition, health, agricultural extension and education, and food and medicine experts as well as the typical farmers and experts of Agriculture-Jahad Organization of Ilam province). The purposeful and snowball sampling methods were used to select 18 experts of the participants, based on theoretical saturation criterion. The data were analyzed through the three stages of open, axial and selective coding.Findings revealed that the studied model consisted of6 categories, 16 sub-categories and 62 concepts, including:causal conditions (health and environmental threats), contextual factors (household food patterns, socio-cultural conditions), axial category (existence of enough food, food availability, food intake stability, established food health), strategies (supply healthy food with proper consumption pattern, crisis management, sustainable agricultural development, increasing educational and support services), environmental interventions (welfare and economic support, management support and programming, educational and health support) and outcomes (stopping the decline and improving the health and nutrition of rural consumers). The results of coding stages and analyses with a qualitative approach in the whole theory led to the model design. Finally, the conceptual model and components of the model were presented along with the related components and indicators.