The Department of Agriculture issued on Thursday the implementing guidelines of its salt industry development project that seeks to boost the country’s local production of the commodity by expanding production areas.
“Salt has been a very important commodity for thousands of years, and has engraved its part in the economic history of the world,” the DA said in MC 34, which was signed by agriculture officials on September 14. A copy of MC 34 was posted on the DA’s web site on Thursday. The DA explained that increasing domestic salt production would require expansion of salt-producing areas nationwide, a measure that the national government must spearhead.
Furthermore, the DSIP seeks to institutionalize capacity building of fisherfolk groups and associations in terms of food safety requirements as well as revitalizing the salt industry as a profitable livelihood for marginalized fisherfolk, particularly women in fishing communities, according to the DA.
“Salt producers who ceased their operation but were encouraged to revive their operation and avail of the new technologies to increase salt production,” it said. Concerns regarding the country’s reliance on importation to meet local salt requirements were aired in the past few weeks after agriculture officials sounded the alarm over dwindling domestic production of the commodity.