The sun isn’t fully up, but Pedro Salas Díaz is already hard at work carrying 100-pound sacks of salt down the hillside to be stored for sale. He navigates his way along the rock walls that separate hundreds of small pools that have been here for centuries.
Salas Díaz is only 23, but he’s been working here for the majority of his life.
“This has been passed down from generation to generation,” he said. “From my grandfather, to my father and now, me.”
But here in this Oaxacan town of Zapotitlan Salinas, migration and climate change may spell the end of salt farming in Mexico.
Salas Díaz works alongside his father as one of the youngest in a group of less than 100 traditional salt farmers left here.
Visiting this salt farm is like stepping back in time. Even the salt-makers don’t know how many hundreds of years ago the stairs and the rock walls of the mineral springs were built.
Their salt farming technique has remained roughly the same for generations.
They use the spring water to fill the salt pools. It can take two months of watering, washing, rewashing, and breaking up the crystals, for each pool to produce a few hundred pounds of salt.
Back before industrialized production, the salt here was a coveted commodity that Indigenous people called “white gold.” Popoloca peoples produced and traded it widely long before the arrival of the Spanish.
Those days are over, but it’s still a huge source of pride for the local community.
“It’s our identity,” local tour guide Leonardo Noé said.
“Our town is named Zapotitlán Salinas, or Zapotitlán ‘of the salt farms.’ It’s our unique identity and puts us on the map.”
But still, Noé said, many youth are leaving in search of easier, better-paying jobs elsewhere. Many have migrated to the United States.
“We need to incorporate more youth, and more people who want to learn the skill of being a salt farmer,” he said.
In town, huge baskets holding bags of salt sit outside the shop of resident Marcelo Salas.
“When I opened this store, the first thing I wanted to do was sell this salt, because it’s part of our culture,” Salas said. “We sell about a ton of it a week.”
Across the street, Maria del Carmen Cruzalas owns and runs a taco shop.
“We are the children of salt farmers,” she said. “And there is a huge difference between refined salt and the salt we produce here. Our salt gives another flavor to the meat and sauces.”
Their salt is also good for one’s health. A recent study from the nearby Tehuacán Technological University found that it has 65% less sodium and is rich with 200 minerals.
That’s because this whole region used to be underwater. The ancient sea left behind salt and minerals, which the rains collect when they fall during the summer months — and replenish the mineral springs that feed the salt farms.
But farmer Pedro Salas Díaz said those springs aren’t filling up like they used to, and he’s concerned for the future.
“With climate change, there are times when it’s not supposed to rain and it does, and times when it’s supposed to rain, when it doesn’t. It is very concerning,” he said.
Salt farmers here need the summer rains to fill the springs, but a rain during the dry season, right now, could ruin months of work.
But Díaz said they will weather the storm. And when his toddler son is ready, he’ll be bringing him along, too — teaching him the trade that he learned from his father and his grandfather before him.
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