23 rd European Seminar on Extension (and) Education ESEE July 4 – 7, Chania, Greece 1 Does the agricultural extension system in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to be re forme d? Bander M. ALSAGHAN a and Ahmed M. DIAB b a National Agriculture & Animal Resources Research Centre, Ministry of Environment, Water & Agriculture, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. E-mail: bandral2000@yahoo.com b Department of Rural Sociology and Agricultural Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, the New Valley Branch, Egypt. E-mail: a.diab@aun.edu.eg ABSTRACT The government of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is increasingly emphasizing the importance of institutional rearrangements. One area of current interest to ministry of environment, water & agriculture involves reforming national agricultural extension system. The purpose of this research is to 1) recognize whether the agricultural extension system in KSA needs to be reformed or not?, 2) determine reform alternatives for better extension system in KSA. The framework for determining the need for extension reform was used to determine the need of extension system to reform. Extension personnel's opinions on extension reform alternatives were determined. Data were collected using questionnaire form within personal interviews with 81-extension personnel around the nation during May-August 2016. Frequencies and percentages were used for data presentation. Findings revealed that all aspects of the extension system in KSA are good candidates for reform. Result also show that the most appropriate arrangements of decentralization are: Transfer of specific extension activities to NGOs, FBOs and private firms at different levels, and Deconcentration. The participatory extension, farming systems development and educational institution approaches are the most appropriate approaches. Participation of elected groups of farmers and NGOs & FBOs are the most appropriate alternatives of extension program planning followed by bottom-up approach. Findings also show that extension personnel prefer provision of extension services through public sector with any of financing mechanism. The Public-Public mechanism was the most accepted alternative followed by FBOs-Public and NGOs- Public alternatives, while, they do not accept financing extension services by farmers with any of service provider. Key Words: Agricultural extension, Reforming, FDNER, Saudi Arabia Introduction The agricultural sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most important developmental sectors. It plays an important role in increasing national income, achieving food sufficiency for many important foodstuffs, and labor force. National developmental plans and policies are developed to improve the plant, animal and fish departments to achieve the development of rural and urban areas in a balanced manner. Moreover, the private sector was encouraged to invest in agricultural sector in the Kingdom (Ministry of Agriculture and Water, 1999, 143). The agricultural extension organization in Saudi Arabia is one of main pillars of the agricultural development. It was established in 1945 as a sector of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water (Alsaghan, 2006, 9). By 2005, the General administration of Agricultural Extension was established including three departments (Plant, Aquaculture, and Livestock) (Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, 2017). In developing countries, bureaucratic inefficiency and poor program design and implementation have led to poor performance and incoherent links with client farmers and the research sector (Abdel-Ghany and Diab, 2013, 143). In the kingdom, Extension and