"Long after sunset, Motoaki Iijima’s illuminated greenhouse north of Tokyo glows like a lantern as the flower farmer harvests pink and orange gerberas, avoiding a daytime sun fierce enough to be deadly.
As increasingly intense heatwaves turn Japanese summers into survival tests, farmers — from flower and asparagus growers to egg producers — are rewriting the agrarian clock.
Once-busy midday hours are now avoided as a mortal threat, replaced by after-dark work to protect crops, livestock and themselves.
Iijima, 36, converted his family’s centuries-old rice farm in the rural town of Nikko into a flower farm a decade ago. Three summers ago, after a part-time worker suffered heatstroke picking sunflowers in his greenhouse, he made a dramatic change.
Outside temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) — increasingly common in his region — can push greenhouse interiors above 40 C. Now, Iijima works outdoors through the night, stopping only when the morning sun turns punishing again."
