Purpose

This research determines the extent to which farmers benefit from agricultural extension activities and services through realizing higher biological crop yields in the Al-Baha region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the nature of the relationship between the personal, economic and social characteristics of farmers and the degree to which they benefit from agricultural extension activities and services are studied.

Methodology

A simple random sample representing the community of 315 farmers was drawn. Data were collected through a personal interview with a pre-tested questionnaire to satisfy the objectives of the study. Data are subjected to analyses and are interpreted in terms of percentages, arithmetic averages, and standard deviations in addition to the simple Pearson correlation coefficients.

Results

The results show that most of the respondents depend on personal experience, friends, family and neighbors, merchants and sellers of agricultural production supplies as sources of agricultural information for enhanced crop yields. Multiple regression analysis reveals that both the educational status and the agricultural information sources are important factors that increase farmers benefit from extension activities. Farmers receive most benefits from the extension activities and services from bringing in foreign workers, conducting field trips to farms, and identifying problems faced by farmers.

Research limitations/implications

The outcome of this questionnaire limits generalization of the findings for other parts of the Kingdom due to geographical and natural resources variations.

Practical implications

The personal and socio-economic characteristics of the surveyed population provide the extension service with insight into their composition – a basis to formulate workable extension programs. For the extension planners of the area, this effort provides a baseline study and may assist with targeting the appropriate farmers and catering the right solutions to the problems. Such a study will help devise meaningful extension programs and save time and resources.

Originality/value

Little previous research on the usefulness of the Extension Service has been conducted in the region.

Conclusions

Effective, well-planned extension programs targeting the educated and mature farmers provided more benefits and helped them obtain higher crop yields.

中文翻译：

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通过农业推广活动和服务获得的生物产量：以阿尔巴哈地区为例-沙特阿拉伯王国

目的

这项研究确定了沙特阿拉伯王国的巴哈地区实现更高的生物作物产量，从而使农民从农业推广活动和服务中受益的程度。此外，研究了农民的个人，经济和社会特征之间的关系的性质以及他们从农业推广活动和服务中受益的程度。

方法

抽取了代表315个农民社区的简单随机样本。通过与预先测试过的调查表的个人访谈收集数据，以满足研究的目的。除简单的皮尔逊相关系数外，还对数据进行分析，并以百分比，算术平均值和标准差的形式进行解释。

结果

结果表明，大多数答复者依靠个人经验，朋友，家人和邻居，农业生产供应商的商人和卖方作为农业信息的来源，以提高农作物的单产。多元回归分析表明，受教育程度和农业信息资源都是增加农民从推广活动中受益的重要因素。农民从推广活动和服务中获得的最大收益来自引进外国工人，实地考察农场以及发现农民面临的问题。

研究局限/意义

由于地理和自然资源的变化，该调查表的结果限制了沙特阿拉伯其他地区的调查结果的泛化。

实际影响

被调查人口的个人和社会经济特征为推广服务提供了对其组成的洞察力，这是制定可行的推广计划的基础。对于该地区的扩展计划者，此工作提供了基线研究，可以帮助确定合适的农民并为问题提供正确的解决方案。这样的研究将有助于设计有意义的扩展程序并节省时间和资源。

创意/价值

以前在该地区很少进行有关扩展服务有用性的研究。

结论

针对受过教育和成熟的农民的有效，计划周密的推广计划提供了更多的收益，并帮助他们获得了更高的农作物产量。