Australis sites share BioMar Chile's best-farmer crown
Two salmon farms run by Australis have been jointly named BioMar Chile’s Farmer of the Year 2020 for achieving a low biological feed conversion ratio (bFCR).
The Costa and Punta Ramon sites were chosen from a top 10 of farms operated by Australis, Blumar, Cermaq and Multiexport Foods that all had a bFCR of 1.1 or lower. All four companies use BioMar feed.
BioMar said farms using the company’s feed showed remarkable results last year. The 48 million fish harvested by the top 10 farms recorded an average bFCR of 1.06, ranging between 1.00 and 1.10. The fish also had excellent growth and high weight at harvest.
Joint effort
“The results reflect the joint and permanent work with our customers,” said BioMar Chile’s commercial manager, Michael Adler.
“The results are consistent over time, with different producers and in different farming areas.”
BioMar said that since the implementation of its high energy diets there has been a continuous reduction in bFCR and an increase in growth rates in general, with excellent results in the case of Atlantic salmon.
Over the past year, the 10 best farm sites - using different BioMar feeding strategies - had recorded an average increase in harvest weight of more than 400g, along with a decrease in the average bFCR of 0.01 and a reduction in the farming cycle of approximately 15 days compared to 2019.
Sites stood out
“Although 10 Atlantic salmon farms showed very good results for the harvest closed last December, two Australis sites stood out and received the BioMar Farmer of the Year 2020 award: Costa in Aysen and Punta Ramón in Magallanes,” said Eduardo Suazo, BioMar’s BioFarm manager.
Australis production manager Cristian Sauterel said: “This fills us with pride as a team and as a company. Undoubtedly, the work done by each of the collaborators of these farms has been outstanding, especially in this year of pandemic, when our production system has been so severely challenged.
“Key to the good performance are the highly trained, committed and motivated professionals. However, nothing would be possible without the support of the different areas of the company, especially the feed team, which plays a fundamental role in our production strategy, including high performance balanced diets and good animal welfare practices.”
BioMar is due to announce its Farmer of the Year for coho salmon in a few weeks, when the coho harvest is finished.
