Int. J. Adv. Res. Biol.Sci. 1(8): (2014): 205-211 205 International Journal of Advanced Research in Biological Sciences ISSN : 2348-8069 www.ijarbs.com Research Article Food security situation of small farmers in district Rawalpindi Ishrat Fatima 1 , Kanwal Naeem 2 , Badar Naseem Siddiqui 3 , Sadia Bano 4 , Muhammad Imran Yousaf 5 , Laila Khalid 6 and Muhammad Aslam 6 1 Agriculture Extension and Communication. PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi 2 Agriculture Extension and Communication. PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi 3 Agriculture Extension and Communication. PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi 4 Agriculture Extension Department.Govt. of Punjab, Rawalpindi 5 Institute of continuing Education, PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi. 6 Adaptive Research wing Rahim Yar Khan *Corresponding author: laila_kld@yahoo.com Abstract Pakistan is facing a number of calamities on economic, social and environmental fronts. Recently, elevated food inflation along with high rates of redundancy has pessimistically affected food security of millions of people, especially of small farmers. Although all of the farmers were sowing wheat along with other crops but the produce of the sown crops were not satisfying food needs of a large majority of respondents. Other than wheat all food items were bought from market which were easily available from market but were not economically accessible to most of the respondents. Equal access and utility of all food items by all family members was also lacking in study area, only 35-37% of the respondents said that their hunger needs are satisfied. Respondents were also not having awareness about all aspects of food security. Keywords: Food security, ICTs, small farmers. Introduction Food security could be defined as “physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food by all people at all times to meet their dietary needs and to maintain active and healthy life” (FAO, 2006). It could be potted into three aspects: food availability, accessibility and utilization. Among them, first aspect can be attained when enough food is persistently available to all constituents of the society. It can be ensured through local and domestic production, importation and food aids. Whereas, food accessibility; the second aspect of food security, can be achieved when all family units and individuals have adequate resources to put away an appropriate diet. In other words, food could only be made accessible if domestic income permits the preparation and purchase of sufficient food (Bakhtiari and Haghi, 2003). Similarly the third aspect; food utilization, refers to the food usage that depends on domestic knowledge and procedures for processing and storage of food, fundamental morals of diet and taking care for children (FAO, 2006). Failure in achieving above three aspects of food security resulted in a situation called food insecurity. It is the situation when there is lack of availability, accessibility, and utility of safe and nutritional food (Gareau, 2004). Severity of this problem can be analyzed through food insecurity statistics of United States where during 1980, 9.7 percent of households were not having enough food to meet their basic intake needs and by 2008, that percentage had risen to 14.7 percent (ibid). Studies conducted by FAO reveal that globally, in 2010, about 925 million people were malnourished in comparison with 1.023 billion of