Mark Ireland doesn’t know whether it is due to the weather or climate change, but one thing he is certain of is that over the past 25 years, a great deal has changed along the furrows of his farm in southeast Lincolnshire.

Farmers have always been gamblers, betting on the weather year after year, but climate change appears to be thrusting them into games with Mother Nature that they’ve never played before. Crop planting and harvest time have moved progressively earlier. Crop yields and rainfall patterns and amounts are different. So are the pests, diseases and weather extremes that people like Ireland must learn to deal with to stay in the “game.”