Attitude of Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabian Farmers towards Extension Employees in Leadership Ability and Communication of Innovative Adoption

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitude of the farming community towards adapting an innovative technology. A sample of 300 extension agents and farmers from the Al-Qassim region of Saudi Arabia completed a self-assessment of two instruments: the educational/experience behavior battery and innovation adoption instrument. Using descriptive statistics and a multiple regression analysis showed that 6% of the farmers had low adoption behavior, 51.31% had moderate adoption behavior, 36% had high adoption behavior, and 3.33% had very high adoption behavior. It was also revealed that the following three variables were significant determinants of the decision to adopt new innovations: trustworthiness, problem resolution, and future incentives. Surprisingly, knowledge and social skills were not significant and were attributed to resentment and attitude formation. We recommend the following changes: training and retraining of extension workers on communication, improving incentives provided to extension workers, removal of bureaucratic benchmarks, and involvement of farmers in the planning for extension programming.