A Fair Salt
Despite being one of the most essential minerals on our planet, vital for maintaining human life, how many of us have ever considered where the salt we use every day comes from?
Taken for granted, all over the world, most of us will reach for a simple pot of table salt without ever considering the effort required to produce it. But as the salt farmers of Pemba island, part of the Zanzibar archipelago will tell you, that effort is considerable.
For generations, this close-knit salt farming community has been toiling under the baking sun to produce their harvest of salt. Hassan, a salt farmer of more than 20 years, explained that in the past much of that salt was purchased at desperately low prices by large international corporations, who would go on to sell to retailers at hugely inflated prices on the world markets.
While Hassan and other farmers sat in makeshift shelters of straw and mud, corporation traders sat in comfortable offices, far away from the harsh reality of the salt pans, making huge profits off the back-breaking hard work of others, using their size and financial muscle to drive down farmers' prices. But slowly, things are beginning to change. The salt farmers of Pemba are part of a pilot scheme allowing them to sell directly to retailers and reap more of the reward of their hard work than ever before. But this will only work if we, the consumers, are prepared to buy their salt.
Our spending power is more potent than many of us realise, and where we spend our hard-earned cash makes a difference. We are not bystanders in the process; markets are driven entirely by consumer demand and habit. We are responsible for knowing whether the salt we use to season our meals, the tea and coffee we drink, the clothes we wear, or any other daily items we take for granted are ethically produced. Only through consumer action will things change, allowing Hassan, and the millions like him around the world, to enjoy the benefit of their labour.
So, next time you reach for the salt we all take for granted, ask yourself where it came from. Those who have toiled so hard to produce it will thank you.
