Faced with scorching temperatures driven by climate change, farmers in North Macedonia are abandoning their traditional working hours. The unbearable daytime heat has left tobacco growers with a difficult choice: work in complete darkness at night or risk losing their crops.

Equipped with headlamps, farmworkers cut the valuable leaves in the hours before dawn, taking advantage of the relative cool of the night before the sun turns the fields into an oven.

A Reuters team traveled to Prilep to witness this new reality, speaking with local farmers about the challenges they face.

“It is completely impossible to harvest tobacco in these temperatures. This work used to be done in daylight. But now, with this heat, everyone is forced to gather the crop either before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m., and often throughout the night,” farmer Valentina Bosnjak told Reuters.

Although working in the dark brings a range of unexpected difficulties, it has become the only way to ensure the economic survival of families whose livelihoods depend entirely on this crop.

The practice of adjusting harvesting hours is spreading rapidly throughout the Balkans’ agricultural sector. The phenomenon is becoming more widespread as scorching summer heatwaves grow not only longer but also significantly more intense.

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