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. 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. 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. The outcome of this questionnaire limits generalization of the findings for other parts of the Kingdom due to geographical and natural resources variations. 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. Little previous research on the usefulness of the Extension Service has been conducted in the region. Effective, well-planned extension programs targeting the educated and mature farmers provided more benefits and helped them obtain higher crop yields.

Agricultural cooperatives are widely regarded as engines of rural development, yet their role in advancing the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainability within specialized subsectors such as beekeeping remains empirically underexplored, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council region. This study examines the social and economic determinants of beekeepers’ membership in agricultural cooperatives in the Al-Baha region of Saudi Arabia, home to roughly 70% of the Kingdom’s beekeeping activity. Data were collected from 200 beekeepers through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using Pearson correlation, multiple linear regression, and the Mann–Whitney U test. Only 21% of respondents were cooperative members. While age, family size, experience, hive holding size, harvest frequency, and marketing-practice adoption were all significantly correlated with membership, regression analysis showed that only years of experience, hive holding size, and adoption of marketing practices remained significant predictors when considered jointly, explaining 30.8% of the variance in membership status (R² = 0.308). Mann–Whitney tests further revealed that members differed significantly from non-members in family labor contribution, access to financing, ownership of a marketing shop, and access to extension services, with shop ownership showing the largest effect size (r = 0.497). These findings indicate that cooperative membership is driven primarily by commercial experience and institutional connectedness rather than demographic characteristics, carrying direct implications for income diversification, rural resilience, and the sustainability agenda under Saudi Vision 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals 2, 5, 8, and 15.