Among the sites the team visited was the salt-makers cooperative in Bote, Bato where a number of makeshift salt beds consisting of black UV plastic traps on bamboo frames were installed on the sandy shore.
During the Salinas inspection, the provincial government provided support by delivering 15 pieces of plywood and UV plastic for use as improvised salt beds.
Former Governor Araceli Wong initiated the local salt-making production in the coastal village when she won in 2013, with the Provincial Agricultural Support Office (PASO) adopting the project with the assistance of the DOST.
However, the project was discontinued three years later when she left office, as it no longer had the backing of the succeeding administration.
A group allied with the former governor revived the project in 2020, providing the workers with salt beds and a water pump, and registering them as a cooperative but their efforts fizzled out again for lack of government support and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A building to be used as processing facility was built on private land but without a written agreement, with the owner later demanding its removal.
With the administration’s ASINsado project, Wong and her group brought back the Bote salt making from the dead in preparation for the Salinas inspection visit.
June Ophar Dy of the Provincial Cooperatives Development Office told the Tribune that without adequate government support, it is difficult to organize and maintain a cooperative engaged in salt production, even with its unlimited raw materials.
This could be resolved through the rehabilitation of the cooperative and the grant of financial assistance from DA or DOST.
Due to limited salt beds, the Bote salt makers can only produce about 10 kilograms of salt during this dry run but cannot sell the product on the market as it has yet to undergo iodization and testing for purity or absence of impurities from seawater.