"In good days, we could trade one kilogram of salt for one kilogram of grain," he said, "but when luck wasn't on our side, it took two kilograms of salt to get just one kilogram of food."

Samdrub said that it was the wisdom of ancestors that had helped them survive the hard days back then.

Nowadays, villagers have found prosperity by reviving the thousand-year-old salt-making tradition.

In 2018, to help increase local incomes, the township built a crude salt processing plant with a total investment of more than 3.65 million yuan ($511,000). The facility was equipped with a set of iodized salt production equipment, a modern belt conveyor, a hot-air dryer, and three packaging machines, among others.

Since then, a full industrial chain — from salt harvesting and storage to processing, packaging, and sales was formed.