& character Issue in custom taxonomy

Hello,

I have woocommerce installed and there is one category which contains & like this “7 FARM & RURAL”, now when i try to retrieve category id by name i am using this function

function get_wocom_cat_ID( $cat_name='General' ) {
	$cat = get_term_by( 'name', $cat_name, 'product_cat' );
	if ( $cat )
		return $cat->term_id;
	return 0;
}

and when i call the function by passing term name as a paramater then it does not retreive the id..for the rest of the terms which dont have & its returning the id but for this its not..If anyone have some sort of solution then please reply ASAP.