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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.