Status of the Salt Industry in the Philippines: Production, Challenges, and Opportunities

Despite being archipelagic, the Philippines heavily relies on salt imports to meet its annual demand. There is a dearth of literature on the country’s salt industry, including verified production data, current practices, and factors affecting declining domestic production. This paper seeks to bridge these knowledge gaps, generating baseline data to provide applicable policy direction and sustainable development strategies for the Philippine salt industry. Contrary to the industry report, local salt production is estimated at 114,623.29 MT, or 16.78% of the country’s annual salt requirement. Occidental Mindoro is the biggest salt-producing province, with a 57.43% share in production. A myriad of factors has contributed to the decline in domestic production, such as failure to adapt to the changes brought by climate change, passage of ASIN Law, profitable land-use conversion, market competition, and stringent food safety standards and product quality requirements. Moreover, limited government policies that can be associated with the lack of agency tasked to oversee the industry, unattractive business environment, and limited access to government support services have pushed local salt producers into obscurity. The labor-intensive and seasonal production, unreasonable labor practices, and small economic returns have steered the growing disinterest among younger generations, which may indicate a total demise of the industry in the long run. The country should maximize its inherent natural advantages to scale up domestic salt production and lower importation. This could be done by institutionalizing an orchestrated approach to set forth holistic solutions to the multifaceted challenges for the sustainable development of the Philippine salt industry.