KNOWLEDGE LEVEL OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION WORKERS REGARDING ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION LEGISLATION AND AGRICULTURAL POLLUTANTS: A CASE STUDY IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Dept. Agric. Ext. and Rural Sociol., King Saud Univ., Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is continuously making concerted efforts to deliver environmentally sound farming practices through its dynamic extensionstaff. This research aims to gauge their awareness and knowledge levels regarding environmental laws.With a reasonable knowledge of environmental laws, they can evaluate farming practices and observe the extent of the implementation of the environmental laws by the farmers.All the extension workers (266) on the payroll of the Saudi government were included in the study.Data were collected by using the pre-tested questionnaire. In order to understand the findings of the study, data were analyzed for, arithmetic average and standard deviation in addition to the simple Pearson correlationcoefficient.The results showed that high percentage of young and middle-aged respondents, accounting for about 74% of the total respondents. More than half of the study population (55.7%) were holding a bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences and about 70.2 percent of extension staff had professional experience from 1-13 years. However, they had a good grasp of the 5 most important environmental legislations. About 41.9 % of the respondents knew about the wrong practices that could cause environmental pollution. The study reveals that knowledge regarding the punishment/penalties significantly depends on the variable “knowledge of legislation”. A positive and significant correlation between "the number of years of experience in agricultural extension" and the extension workers' awareness levels of environmental protection legislation was realized.The study indicates that most of the respondents are relatively young and inexperienced having low levels of knowledge of environmental legislations.However, they have a greater inclination to learn and practice.Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended to organize extensive training courses for the extension staff on environmental legislations to make them well-conversant with environmentally friendly and sound agriculture so that while working with the farmers, they may transmit the principles and practices of pollution-free farming comfortably.

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Zagazig Journal of Agricultural Research
Volume 50, Issue 2
March and April 2023
Pages 241-255

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