Precision farming enables agricultural management decisions to be tailored spatially and temporally. Site-specific sensing, sampling, and managing allow farmers to treat a field as a heterogeneous entity. Through targeted use of inputs, precision farming reduces waste, thereby cutting both private variable costs and the environmental costs such as those of agrichemical residuals. At present, large farms in developed countries are the main adopters of precision farming. But its potential environmental benefits can justify greater public and private sector incentives to encourage adoption, including in small-scale farming systems in developing countries. Technological developments and big data advances continue to make precision farming tools more connected, accurate, efficient, and widely applicable. Improvements in the technical infrastructure and the legal framework can expand access to precision farming and thereby its overall societal benefits.

Purpose -The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of agricultural policy reformspecifically the change from market to direct payment support -on income variability of Swiss farming households. In addition, the observed heterogeneity in income risks across farms and time is explained in terms of farm and regional characteristics. Design/methodology/approach -Unbalanced farm-level panel data of the Swiss farm accountancy network (FADN) are used to construct coefficients of variation of five-year overlapping time intervals for total household income and gross farm revenues over the period 1992 to 2009. Linear fixed effect models are applied to measure the effect of specialization, off-farm income, direct payments, farm size, and liquidity on the variability of gross farm revenues and household income in the valley, hill, and mountain regions. Findings -The switch from market-based support to direct payments has decreased the variability of farm revenues and household income. The strong reliance on direct payments serves as insurance for most farmers and reduces both household income and revenue risk. Off-farm income can be used by farmers to reduce household income risk but it increases revenue risk in the valley regions. In all of the regions considered, farm size has a positive effect on household income risk and a negative effect on revenue risk. A high degree of specialization increases both gross revenue and household income risk. Potential revenue insurance contracts should specify farmers' off-farm employment, the degree of specialization, farm size, and regional specific risk profiles. Originality/value -This paper assesses the complementary effects of specific farm characteristics and risk management strategies with regard to both farm revenue and household income risk. Influences of agricultural policy changes on income risks are also empirically assessed at different spatial scales.

This paper reviews the evidence on the socio-economic impacts of GM crops and analyzes whether there are patterns across space and time. To this end, we investigate the effect of GM crops on farm-level costs and benefits using global data from more than one decade of field trials and surveys. More specifically, we analyze the effects of GM-crops on crop yields, seed costs, pesticide costs, and management and labor costs and finally gross margins. Based on collected data from studies on Bt cotton and Bt maize, statistical analyses are conducted to estimate the effect of GM crop adoption on these parameters. Our results show that, compared to conventional crops, GM crops can lead to yield increases and can lead to reductions in the costs of pesticide application, whereas seed costs are usually substantially higher. Thus, the results presented here do support the contention that the adoption of GM crops leads on average to a higher economic performance, which is also underlined by the high adoption rates for GM crops in a number of countries. However, the kind and magnitude of benefits from GM crops are very heterogeneous between countries and regions, particularly due to differences in pest pressure and pest management practices. Countries with poor pest management practices OPEN ACCESS

This is the accepted version of a paper published in the European Review of Agricultural Economics. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proofcorrections or journal pagination.