Has anybody tried making this salt trendy among the Whole Foods set? That pink salt from the Himalayas must be putting money into someone's pocket.

May I be the first to suggest Fresh Salt?

This is great news. I'm going to collect the workout sweat of attractive young people, put their pictures on the containers, and sell his and hers salt for $50/oz.

3: ogged, did you not see how Mossy did the math and figured out even with the supply of salt declining from the mine, the price of salt has gone down?

I think Bezos or Musk has figured out how to extract the salt from their employees' tears, so there's an endless supply now.

Way to make failing sustenance herding creepy.

I wonder if the price of salt isn't going down because the quality dropped with the quantity or just because nobody has money to buy any?

I'm guessing most of the demand is for livestock, and the drought that killed the mine also killed or displaced the herds.

even with the supply of salt declining from the mine, the price of salt has

Is there a reason to think this mine was ever significant compared to global supply?

Although the article doesn't talk about who owns the mine. If there's a private employer or even just intermediary, they could have stopped facilitating this work as a result of the price drop.

This is inland Somalia. I'm guessing if mass-produced imports were available this artisan production would never have been competitive.

That's probably true.

It's that isolated a place? I thought most commodities were globalized almost everywhere.

This town has what looks on satellite like a paved highway out to Baidoa and Mogadishu, with big trucks using it.

Or maybe the price dropped because someone started to import cheaper salt from outside?

I'm sure Tractor Supply Company will be in after the area is safer.

Oh, not sure if you meant, MC, that what dropped 2/3 is the global price of salt. It's not in the article.

Let me be the first to suggest that when it rains it pours.

11, 12: Good points.
14: Local price, inferred from the article.

15 is right. Like, complexity, bro.
This Luq place is an artwork of a location.

A seasonal river disappears for part of the year. A seasoning river flows with salt, maybe pepper.

There's gotta be several actual ecoists who specialize in studying salt who can answer these questions, right?
I bought Salt the book but never read it.

Economists!

If you Salt the book, does it still allow for growth?

I read an entire book called The Price of Salt, but did it offer any insight into the price of salt? It did not.

I've been to a few islands in the Bahamas where salt was a mainstay of the economy. One one of them, Long Island, the Diamond Crystal Salt Company had upped stakes and left a couple decades back, and took a whole lot of the jobs with it. Over on Ragged Island there was a local salt flat that was sectioned off with a lot of local families owning a claim, working the salt and selling through an agent. On Great Inagua, Morton Salt has a massive operation that employs most of the population. These are tiny, isolated places and salt is an economic lifeline.

22: I saw a movie called Salt. Same thing!

I myself am sometimes salty.

But are you worth your salt?

Diamond crystal salt is just a class-action waiting to happen. No wonder they quit.