Winemaker Justin Jarrett remembers when the grape harvest used to start.

He and his wife, Pip, used to take their kids on an annual beach holiday in February. When they returned to their vineyards in the regional New South Wales city of Orange in early autumn, they’d start the harvest.

Today, harvest starts six weeks earlier, in January.

“What we did 20 years ago can’t work today,” Jarrett says. “You have to adjust.”

Scientists used to have big debates about how to talk to farmers about climate change, says Snow Barlow, a professor specialising in viticulture at the University of Melbourne.

But recently, there’s been a sea change. Farmers are now saying, “This is serious and we want to get on with doing things,” he says.