IT is good to note that there are still government agencies that value the growth of local economies, and would rather do their purchasing locally rather than import their requirements. That is, if the commodity needed can be adequately supplied by local firms or LGUs.
One case in point is the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), which has been ordered by President Bongbong Marcos to scale up the planting, replanting, and production of coconuts--their main reason for being.
The PCA planting and replanting program aims to fully revitalize the coconut industry by planting 100 million trees from 2023 to 2028.
To attain this objective, the PCA needs thousands of bags of sea salt for use as fertilizer for newly planted coconut seedlings. The use of salt in coconut production has been found effective and is now widespread in most Southeast Asian countries.
When the Philippine Coconut Authority needed some 6,940 bags of 50-kilo agricultural grade salt fertilizer for the coconut planting program in Pampanga and Aurora, the Pangasinan Salt Center in Bolinao was able to accommodate the order.
This means we do not have to import the coconut fertilizer requirement of the PCA for the two provinces, thus saving our dollars and creating more jobs in these provinces in Central Luzon.
Pampanga and Aurora are the latest additions to the areas being supplied by the 473-hectare salt farm, located in Barangay Zaragoza, Bolinao town and owned and managed by the provincial government. Assistant Provincial Agriculturist Nestor Batalla said the salt center produced around 6,100 metric tons of salt this year.
The PCA is headed by its Administrator Dr. Dexter Buted, with Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. as board chairman.
Speaking of salt, statistics show that the country imports at least 850,000 metric tons of salt from Australia and China annually. That is 93 percent of the country’s salt requirement.
Salt is an important ingredient in cooking our food, just like garlic, onion and ginger, yet our departments of agriculture, trade and industry are seemingly content in just importing these commodities when we can develop and enhance their local production.
More than half for our salt requirement goes to the kitchen, used in the preparation of dishes and seasonings. But salt has many more uses in the industrial sector: for the manufacture of paper, plastics, as fertilizer for coconut trees, and for use in ice plants, etc.
Our country has a very long coastline---all of 36,289 kilometers, in fact the fifth longest coastline in the world. This makes the country very suitable for fish, marine products, and salt production. We have all the space to use our coastline to produce these commodities, yet we import fish, shrimp, and salt in great quantities every year.
Something short of revolutionary should be done about this.
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