Vietnam has been able to produce salt that meets international standards, but bad weather has reduced output in some areas by 70 percent.
Earlier this year, the ministry estimated that demand would reach 1.38 million tons for 2008 – to be supplied by domestic production of 1.1 million tons coupled with 50,000 tons drawn from storage and 230,000 tons imported.
Tran Thi Mit, a resident of Tri Hai salt producing village in Ninh Hai District in central Ninh Thuan Province, said only a handful of families in the village can afford life’s basics.
Mit said her family battles to survive on their 0.5 hectare salt farm.
Even when the weather permitted and her family was able to rake 150 tons of salt, they only make between VND300,000 and VND400,000 a ton.
During the rainy season, the residents have to drift to other jobs such as manually carrying fish from the farm to the factory or working in construction.
During the scorching late July heat, Nguyen Huu Hung, another salt farmer in Ninh Chu village in Ninh Thuan Province, was working dawn to dusk raking the farm and preparing to harvest.
Hung, 58, had spent 40 years in the industry.
Hung recalled the events that had affected salt farmers the most.
In 2001, the farmers were able to sell one ton at VND1 million but only one year later the price plummeted to VND100,000 a ton.
The historic flooding in 2003, according to Hung, had ruined most of the salt farmers’ land.
Hung said many farmers wanted to expand their production but couldn’t come up with the money or find land suitable for a salt farm.
Vietnam won’t be able to meet the domestic demand for salt until 2013, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Meanwhile, the salt farmers are still hanging on to their livelihoods by a thread.
For them, everything is uncertain – the weather, prices and the government policies.
By Thien Nhan |
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