The Salty Challenges of Pangasinan’s Salt Making Industry

Pangasinan is one the country’s biggest producers of salt. In fact, its name was derived
from “panag asinan” or where salt is made. In the coastal towns of Dasol & Infanta, salt
making has been their way of life since time could remember.

Farmers here still uses solar evaporation, the traditional way of producing salt. During
dry season, seawater is funneled to the farm from the sea. It sits under the sun’s heat for
long hours until the brine evaporates.

Once ready for harvesting, the coarse product called “barara” is raked from the tiles. It is
manually transported to the barn on baskets yoked on a bamboo sling for storage.
To produce the finer & whiter class called “luyot”, it is cooked on large cauldrons fired
by rice hulls. It is constantly stirred for about 4-6 hours until it reaches the desired
quality. It is then hauled, dried & packed in sacks.

Most produce is bought by big manufacturers where it is reprocessed with potassium

iodide turning it to food grade table salt. The rest goes to local resellers to be sold as
“tingi” in the market. Barara class is also bought for industrial use like making plastic.

This kind of salt making is highly dependent on the sun. During summer, farmers work
fast to produce the salt. As rainy season comes, all of the salt flats are converted into
hatcheries for bangus & shrimps.

Owning salt farms used to be a progressive business. But over time, the industry suffered
so many challenges hurting small-time farmers the most.

Cora Ballesca is one of those farmers in Dasol who once made a fortune out of salt in the
90s. Her farm used to deliver salt by the truckloads to as far as Ilocos & Manila.
But with cheap importation of salt from other countries, competition became tight
shoving many farmers like her in endless cycle of debts. Many of them have downsized
or have folded down.

Beyond competition, the biggest struggle they face in salt making is climate change.
“Sudden rains in summer & extended wet season seriously affect production”, says Mang
Eddie who has been a salt maker for more than 30 years.

Disposal of “tapu” or residues of burned rice hulls is also a challenge for them. They are
calling out for help on how to turn it into biowaste & not just throw it out to the sea like
what is currently practiced.

A cavan of salt that is equivalent to 4 big cans of cooking oil only sells for 320 pesos.
Taking out the share of the farm owner, the farmers are only left a little to sustain them
for the day.

Mang Nestor & wife Marita sell salt by the street in Dasol. The paltry income they get
from it is what they use to make ends meet each day. “Salt farming is hard these days &
none of my children are interested in it”, laments Mang Nestor.
With erratic weather patterns, tough competition & lack of capitalization, the younger
generation see no future in salt making. These realities leave no one to pass on the skills
pushing this long-time tradition into obscurity.

Aling Cora, Mang Eddie, Mang Nestor & many other farmers in Pangasinan yoke
between the challenges of time & keeping the trade alive. Their stories are a reminder
that behind those dashes of sparkling salt are life’s salty realities.

TEXT DENISE DANIELLE ALCANTARA

PHOTOGRAPHY GERIC CRUZ
A condiment so common it could be found in every dining table and kitchen of every household.
A mineral so ubiquitous it can be traced in almost everything we use. Grains so small we failed
to recall its significance to the human body and its impact to human civilization.

We live with a level of salinity almost equal to the ocean—explaining the connection between
humans and our natural yearning for salt water. Salt is very basic: it helps preserve our food and
makes it taste better. But we tend to forget that beyond the physical, this is where life began and
where we built communities to survive. During ancient times, salt was so important that it was
used as currency, tracing back the Latin origin of the word ‘salary.’

Dasol’s salt beds

In a province on the northwest part of Luzon Island, there lies a municipality that lives on salt—
Dasol. The province of Pangasinan is known to have the best aquaculture experts in the region.
With fishponds and cages scattered all throughout the province, Dasol stands out with its local
industry of salt making. “Back in the day, fishponds were also the main source of income in the
area,” shares Noel Nacar, elected mayor of Dasol. Nine out of 18 barangays are
coastal barangays. Their 33-kilometer coastline facing Dasol Bay makes it as a perfect setup for
aquaculture. But Dasol found a livelihood more beneficial and sustainable than aquaculture.

Dasol’s local government prioritizes what’s best for all of Dasol’s inhabitants. “Everybody will
always need salt. Its uses go beyond the culinary industry. We find sodium chloride in health,
cleaning, and beauty products like soap and toothpaste,” Nacar enumerates. But production of
salt is not an easy task. It is heavily dependent on nature—the sun and the sea. The constituents
of Dasol pray for sun and more sun. More sun means speeding up the process of salt making and
a heftier harvest that can make up for the halt in production during the rainy season.

Dasol has a total of 10,000 salt beds across nine coastal barangays and an additional
three barangays that has access to brackish waters from riverines, salt farming is a family-based
industry; every family has an allocation of 25 to 35 salt beds. 400 families benefit and earn from
direct harvesting of salt. The aforementioned figure does not take into account the other workers
that help in the production process. Everybody in the salt-farming community has a role. The
vast salt beds are to be formed and shaped by the family in-charge and some helpers. There is a
separate group of people who places broken clay pot pieces—an activity similar to tiling—on the
salt beds. There are also people tasked to weave baskets and sacks used during harvest; and
designated people are also needed to measure and weigh the heaps of salt harvested and to carry
the heavy sacks.
“Dasol is the home of quality salt for a reason. Our salt is pollution-free,” says Dasol mayor Noel
Nacar.

When the clock strikes three in the afternoon during the dry season, everyone will start working
in the salt farm. It is their 3 o’clock habit of harvesting salt. “However, our constituents can take
another job apart from being a salt farmer. If the husband has an 8-to-5 job in the city, the wife
can start feeding water into the salt beds to start the process in the morning. Then after work, the
husband can help out in harvesting the salt with their kids,” Nacar explains.

When asked what’s distinct about Dasol’s salt, Nacar turns to me with pride and says, “Dasol is
the home of quality salt for a reason. Our salt is pollution-free.” Protecting and developing the
industry entails making the protection of the environment—both land and water—a top priority.
The local government enacts different programs to ensure that their waters are clean and safe
from illegal fishermen. They reforest their mangrove sanctuary regularly since mangroves serve
as the natural filter of seawater. “Last March 27, in partnership with the Maritime Industry
Authority, we launched a training program for fish wardens or bantay dagat,” asserts Nacar,
“With programs like these, we hit two birds with one stone. We protect the industry and the
environment.”

“Everybody will always need salt. Its uses go beyond the

culinary industry. We find sodium chloride in health,
cleaning, and beauty products like soap and toothpaste.”
NOEL NACAR
Nacar admits that there is a higher monetary yield if they shift their livelihood to aquaculture or
mining like their neighbor municipalities. “We have to take into consideration the long-term
effect of the other industries,” explains Nacar. He notes that if they pursue aquaculture, their
local fisherman will lose their livelihood; they’d have to fish farther into the sea or fish on the
waters of other municipalities. On the other hand, even if they have the opportunity to earn more
revenue from mining—in fact, millions compared to thousands they currently earn from salt
farming—the people of Dasol believe that they would only be taken advantage of by investors in
a short span of time. “Mineral is a limited resource; it’s like a ticking bomb. What would happen
to us once all the minerals have been collected?” Nacar further justifies. Fe Ballen, municipal
planning and development coordinator, adds: “Our generation will not suffer because of our
greediness; it is our children who will pay for the destruction of Mother Nature.”

Nature has provided abundant blessings; however, with these come responsibilities. Man knows
better than to lay waste to nature’s creations, making it better for the next generation. Looking
past the now has helped Dasol to create an industry they could proudly call their own—an
industry that is by Dasolinians for Dasolinians—without harming the environment.