Agriculture is an integral constituent of Pakistan’s economy and the primary source of livelihood for nearly 65% of the population living in rural areas. Rice is the second major staple food after wheat and a significant source of foreign exchange earnings through Basmati exports. Pakistan has established an extensive network of agricultural extension to educate the farming community about modern agricultural practices for enhancing the agricultural productivity of major food crops grown in the country. The present study was undertaken to evaluate rice farmers’ views about public extension services and to identify their perspective regarding various ways of enhancing rice production in Pakistan. A multi-stage simple random sampling technique was employed, and data were collected from 193 rice farmers with the help of structured interviews using a pre-tested questionnaire. The findings revealed that a vast majority of the rice farmers were poorly satisfied with the public extension services. The results of the Spearman Rank-Order Correlation showed that landholding size had a significant effect on deciding extension contact; public extension agents are more likely to visit and serve those rice farmers who possess large landholders and therefore have the tendency to intentionally neglect small-scale rice farmers. For enhancing rice production in Pakistan, farmers believed that the provision of subsidized agricultural inputs and a minimum support price for rice is indispensable. Based on our findings, we suggest that to make public extension services more effective, public extension agents should particularly focus on the capacity building of small-scale farmers rather than large-scale farmers. Moreover, there is a need to broaden the scope of public extension services from simple crop protection measures to a set of comprehensive sustainable agricultural practices for increasing agricultural productivity, resource-use efficiency, as well as resilience toward adverse impacts of climate change.

Climate change is a serious threat to the sustainability of global agriculture and food supply that necessitates taking appropriate action for building resilient food production systems and preserving rural economies. In this regard, farmers’ beliefs and concerns about the effects of climate change on agriculture may influence their adoption of adaptation and mitigation practices to address this emerging issue. This work was undertaken to evaluate farmers’ level of concern about climate change in the Jazan province of Saudi Arabia. The study also explored the role of various socioeconomic indicators in shaping farmers’ concerns and highlights various capacity-building initiatives that can be applied at the community level for effective adaptation. Ordered logistic regression was used to study the relationship between farmers’ level of concern and their need for capacity-building initiatives to tackle climate change. Results indicated that insect infestation is the farmers’ top concern, followed by higher crop-diseases incidence and drought. Regression analysis revealed that farmers’ income is a major factor that reduces their concern for insect infestation and crop disease while increases concern for drought. Credit access and information availability have a mixed impact on the farmers’ concern level. Capacity-building initiatives deemed necessary included establishing frequent contacts with extension personnel, timely warnings on droughts and other natural hazards, the training of farmers and extension workers, easy credit facilities, improvement in rural infrastructure and creation of awareness to address specific concern stimulus.

Concerns over the potential harmful impacts of changing climate are strongly echoing around the globe. With its wide range of hazards to human societies, climate change is posing serious threats to human survival and impacting every aspect of human life, including food production systems. It is, therefore, imperative to gauge the local knowledge, perceptions, and adaptation capacity for the effective mitigation of the ill impacts of climate change. In this backdrop, the present study has been designed to investigate the perceptions of farmers regarding causes and impacts of climate change on agriculture. Required data were collected from the Madinah region in Saudi Arabia and analyzed to answer the following study questions: How do farmers perceive impacts of climate change? What factors affect their perceived impacts of climate change? Additionally, what factors affect their perception about the causes of climate change? Individual logit models were used to assess the impacts of various factors on perceived causes and perceived impacts of climate change on agriculture. A multinomial logit model was also employed to figure out significant determinants of perceived causes of climate change on agriculture. Results indicated that the most dominant perceived impacts of climate change are its effects on crop production, followed by drying water sources. The results also revealed that the age of the farmers had a positive effect on their perception of natural processes being the cause of climate change. Similarly, farming experience had an inverse effect on their perceptions regarding causes of climate change. The majority of the farmers seemed clear about the possible drivers of climate change in the country. In particular, about 79 percent of the farmers believed that GHGs and pollution are causing climate change in the country. The findings provide useful insights into farmers’ perceptions about causes and impacts of climate change and may be used by policymakers to strategically design extension and agricultural development initiatives for helping the farmers to implement sustainable agricultural practices to adapt to and lower the adverse impacts of climate change in the Kingdom.

The current study examined the information preferences of the subscribers of various agricultural content accounts on social media as well as the perceived impact of social media on crop production skills in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from the subscribers of the agricultural content accounts of Saudi Arabia on social media using an online survey with the help of a structured questionnaire and a convenient sampling methodology. Both descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis were run to analyse the data. The majority (81%) of the respondents preferred agricultural information in the form of videos, followed by photos (75%). Moreover, a moderate to high impact was reported by the respondents on their various agricultural skills. Trust in social media had a significant negative correlation with respondents’ perceived impact on their crop production skills. The respondents’ preferences for a particular type of information had a significant positive correlation with the perceived impact of social media on their crop production skills. We conclude that subscribers’ trust in social media and their preference for agricultural information in the form of videos are the critical factors that may shape their behaviour positively.