Salt workers, shrimp breeders struggling for existence

Salt workers must sell more than 10 kilos of salt to get enough money to purchase one kilo of rice. 130,000 tons of salt in Bac Lieu and Ca Mau have been left unsold. Meanwhile, shrimp breeders moan as shrimp die in the hot weather.

It has been sunny and hot for a long time in the Mekong Delta, ideal conditions for farmers to harvest salt. Yet those in Bac Lieu and Ca Mau provinces, the two areas with the highest salt output in Vietnam, are unhappy.

The sorrow of salt workers

Out-of-season rains in 2009 spoiled thousands of tons of salt worth tens of billions of dong. Salt prices were very high at 2000-3000 dong per kilo. The price prompted some to focus on making salt their next crop, giving up their shrimp hatcheries. Now the bountiful salt crop of 2010 has made the price fall to 400-700 dong per kilo.

The sharp fall has made the farmers suffer. Many of them decided not to collect salt to avoid paying for labor. The more salt they collect will create bigger losses.

The total volume of salt that farmers in Bac Lieu and Ca Mau have harvested totals 130,000 tons, but even that volume is unsold because of the low prices.

Farmer Tran Van Man complained that most salt workers must borrow money at high interest rates to serve production.

Shrimp die under the sun

In addition, an estimated 4000 hectares of shrimp ponds have suffered from the hot weather. Shrimp die due to the heat or lack of salt water and the big gap between temperatures in the daytime and at night.

Nguyen Van Con, a farmer in Bac Lieu, now sells shrimp very cheaply at 40,000 dong per kilo, even though the shrimp are just two months old, because he fears that the shrimp will perish under the strong sun.

Nguyen Van Tu in Soc Trang province, sighed: “No shrimp can live under such a scorching sun.”

Nguoi lao dong

Tags: Vietnam salt, Vietnam Salt market