Farming has always been gambling with dirt – but the odds are getting longer | Gabrielle Chan

Rainfall patterns are changing, crops are ripening earlier, and the normal rhythms of farming have fallen off – exactly as climate scientists warned

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Smell is the most evocative sense. I lit a mozzie coil this week and a flood of childhood memories came back. The great long, dry days of summer stretched before us as the five of us slept side-by-side in a canvas tent like a can of sardines. Playing cards in a classic Australian caravan park. Running across hot sand before jumping on a towel to save our feet. Summer meant sliding down green waves, dodging bluebottles, too much sunburn and fish and chips.

In the last 30 years though, summer has meant harvest and the battle to get the crop off in a reasonable state for the best possible price. It has meant never knowing whether the wheat would be in the bin before Christmas Day.

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