PAGBABAGO
Dr. Florangel Rosario-Braid
Our top concern in food security today does not focus on a staple crop like rice or corn, but on two essential additives – sugar and salt.
The latest brouhaha over sugar importation had brought into light critical issues facing the industry – tight supply and declining production which had doubled the price of white sugar from ₱50 a year ago to ₱95 a kilo.
This prompted President Marcos, Jr., concurrently agriculture secretary and Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) chair to issue Sugar Order 1 which orders all sugar output for domestic use. The planned importation program would be a “stop gap measure.”
Thus, we must allow manufacturers to import part of their sugar requirements, according to Dr. Jesus Lim Arranza who notes that we merely had a total production of 1.7 million metric tons instead of the projected target of 2.1 million MT due to extreme weather conditions that damaged crops and sugar refineries, and high fertilizer costs.
The history of the sugar industry in the country pre-dates pre-Spanish colonization when Arab traders brought from the Celebes cuttings of sugar cane. Sugar cane became our most important agricultural export between the late 18th century and the mid-70’s because it was the basis of wealth accumulation of some Filipino elite. As of 2005, the country was the ninth largest sugar producer in the world, second, among ASEAN countries.
For three centuries, sugar was the most important of the overseas commodities. Sugar or “white gold” was the engine of the slave trade that brought millions of Africans to the Americas in the 16th century.
Analysts note that although the salt industry may not be dying, it will need help from government and the private sector to make it sustainable.
While the presence of sugar was first acknowledged in England in the 12th century where it was regarded as a spice and medicine, salt was mentioned in the Bible in this passage: “When God rained sulphur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.” This pillar was 700 feet high.
Pangasinan, its name, derived from the phrase. “pinagasinan (where salt is made) is among the country’s top producers. It is my hometown where as a child, I would watch salt farmers raking their salt beds. The other provinces are Mindoro, Bulacan, the Ilocos region, Zambales, Bataan, Marinduque, Antique and Palawan.
Yolanda Sotelo (Inquirer, Sept. 11, 2022) noted challenges facing the salt industry, citing findings by Pangasinan State University’s vice-president for research, Dr. Paulo Cenas who attributed the decline in yield and the massive importation of salt to the labor-intensive nature of the industry. He notes that because it does not pay well, the younger ones have turned away from salt farming.
The passage of the Salt Iodization law or Asin Law that required stringent standards crippled local salt manufacturers. The aim was to eliminate micronutrient malnutrition. But instead of meeting this challenge, the manufacturers deferred the process.
Besides the Asin law, the decline was also due to the massive conversion of salt farms into housing and industrial areas, a fate experienced by other agricultural farms. This had caused the displacement of salt makers who were only leasing the farms from the government. Their facilities were gradually depreciated and they did not have enough capital to invest.
Environmental factors – climate change or “La Niña,” with more rains than usual, limited the salt makers capacity to operate their saltbeds.
With our membership in the World Trade Organization in 1994, our salt farmers saw thousands of tons of salt entering the local market. But we had no laws to protect the industry. Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources’ (BFAR) Nestor Domenden notes that while salt is an important mineral in agriculture and industry, it is an “orphan” with no agency tasked to oversee it. Today, the country imports 93 percent of its salt requirements. This is deemed ironic since we have 36,000 kilometers of coastline.
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