Introduction: Food security is a core foundation of national stability, public health, and long-term development. It extends beyond food availability to ensure that all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food. Food security is influenced not only by agricultural production but also by economic, environmental, institutional, social, and political factors. In Iran, food security is particularly important due to the country’s large population, exposure to natural disasters, climate variability, and geopolitical pressures. In recent decades, drought, groundwater depletion, declining rainfall, rising evaporation, sanctions, trade restrictions, inflation, and reactive policy approaches have posed major challenges to sustainable food production and governance. Nevertheless, Iran also has substantial potential, including climatic diversity, rich genetic resources, varied agroecological zones, and a strong agricultural tradition. These advantages support diversified production, off-season cultivation, and high-value agricultural exports. A major challenge, however, is increasing food production while reducing pressure on scarce water resources. Although agricultural output, including grain production, has improved in some years, these gains have often depended on unsustainable exploitation of freshwater resources. Therefore, food security policies must go beyond short-term production growth and address resilience, environmental sustainability, household purchasing power, and equitable access to food. Therefore, this study was conducted to elucidate the stages and approaches employed in food security policymaking through a qualitative policy analysis using the SWOT method in the MAXQDA software environment.

Materials and methods: This study analyzes food security policymaking in Iran using qualitative SWOT analysis. Through document review, coding, and synthesis, it identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and proposes strategic policy options to improve governance, resilience, and sustainable food security during 2013–2023. The research was carried out in three phases. In the first phase, previous studies, policy documents, laws, regulations, and national and international reports related to food security policymaking were systematically reviewed. In total, 27 selected documents were identified and analyzed in MAXQDA using qualitative document analysis. In the second phase, a qualitative inquiry was conducted through expert interviews to capture practical experiences and stakeholder perspectives. Experts were selected through purposive sampling followed by snowball sampling. Ultimately, 15 academic and executive experts with 15-45 years of experience participated. Maximum variation sampling was applied to ensure diversity of perspectives across sectors relevant to food security. Data analysis combined deductive direct content analysis for the initial extraction of concepts and inductive conventional content analysis to identify emergent constructs. Interview data were analyzed using the five-step framework method: familiarization, identifying a thematic framework, indexing, charting, and interpretation. Coding and classification were performed in MAXQDA 2020, and rigor was assessed according to the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. To strengthen validity and reliability, coding was conducted in two stages by two researchers under expert supervision, and discrepancies were resolved through team discussion. In the third phase, findings from document review and interviews were integrated into a SWOT-based policy analysis. The final coding structure included 60 opportunity codes, 49 threat codes, 160 strength codes, and 271 weakness codes. Based on these results, policy discourse sessions with experts were held to prioritize themes and to formulate consensus-based policy options to reform food security governance and enhance sustainable food security.

Results and Discussion: The interviews revealed serious concerns regarding the health and safety of food products, including the use of non-standard fertilizers and pesticides, chemical contaminants such as nitrate and arsenic, excessive antibiotic use, poor-quality inputs, weak monitoring and labeling systems, incomplete implementation of GAP standards, and the decline of nutritional support programs, all of which threaten public health, particularly among children and vulnerable groups. The SWOT analysis showed that Iran has considerable strengths, including four-season climatic diversity, valuable genetic resources, skilled human capital, high-value export crops, and a broad research network. Opportunities include low-water crops, medicinal plants, international cooperation, quality input imports, transboundary cultivation, and adoption of successful global technologies. However, major weaknesses and threats include fragmented governance, weak implementation, unscientific policymaking, sanctions, corruption, climate change, drought, soil salinity, and inadequate food safety compliance.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The findings show that despite Iran's substantial strategic capacities for sustainable food security, structural and governance weaknesses have a greater influence on food system performance than existing strengths. SWOT analysis identified integrated governance, evidence-based policymaking, sustainable resource management, smart trade policies, support for human capital, and investment in research and innovation as the main strategic priorities. The results suggest that achieving sustainable food security depends more on improving governance and policy coherence than on increasing agricultural production alone. Implementing these strategies can strengthen the resilience, sustainability, and competitiveness of Iran's food system.