It is 3am and pitch black when rice farmer Tran Thi Lan headed into water-logged fields on the outskirts of Hanoi to begin planting, desperate to finish before the day’s brutal heat arrives.
Planting in the dark has become a savior for countless farmers in north and central Vietnam during increasingly hot summers as South and Southeast Asian nations battle record-high temperatures this year.
“It’s so hard to plant the rice when the strong sun is directly on my back and the warm water in the field splashes my face,” 47-year-old Lan said.
Photo: AFP
Lan had managed a few days of daytime planting during a brief respite from the heat, but she has switched to night work as another heat wave has descended on northern Vietnam, with forecasters predicting a long stretch this month where daily temperatures are to exceed 37°C.
“With not enough light, the planting might not be on a straight line,” Lan said, as she quickly buried some roots into a patch of paddy illuminated by her head lamp.
Like Lan, 62-year-old farmer Nguyen Hung Phuong is working from 4pm to 9pm and again from 3am to 9am.
“With extremely high temperatures, it’s very uncomfortable and exhausting to work during daytime, although of course I can see more clearly,” Phuong said.
Working at night makes him “more productive and less distracted,” he said.
Night planting began a few years ago at Nguyen Thi Hanh’s farm.
“Our parents did not have head lamps. The weather was also not as hot,” 56-year-old Hanh said.
Night planting has its advantages for the rice, which Hahn said is sensitive to extremes in temperature.
“It’s in fact much better, because the water is cooler, and more suitable for the young plant”, Hanh said.
Day or night, farmers such as Lan and Phuong can earn up to US$40 a day, a large sum in a country where laborers in rural areas normally earn about US$250 each month.
Yet the work is so tough that hardly anyone wants to do it, Lan said.
“Planting in the dark takes much more time compared to during the day, but we just need to keep going,” she said.
Lan said she worries that, in a few years, no one would be left to do this work.
“The younger ones have all quit for less hard jobs,” she said.
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