Salmonchile split explained
The pursuit of a policy that will “increase both the costs and the risks” of the country’s salmon farming sector are what drove Marine Harvest to quit Salmonchile.
This was the view of MH Chile’s general manager, Per Roar Gjerde, who spoke to Salmonexpert.cl yesterday about the logic behind quitting the trade body and answered a number of key questions.
What regulatory changes would make the industry be more sustainable?
Marine Harvest Chile is convinced that the regulations have to be more profound, intelligent and easy to control. For this, we suggest the following as key factors in future regulations:
- Decide the total sustainable salmon biomass for the entire country (eg 400,000 tonnes).
- Divide this by the 1,300 licenses that exist in the country, to allow 308 tonnes of production per license.
- Allow production units to have more than one licence to reduce the number of installations and establish greater distance between the production units.
- Agree biological limits to reduce the level of sea lice per fish and restrict the use of antibiotics.
- Ensure future growth/reduction should be based on biological performance at each site and allow it to increase or decrease by up to 3% each year.
Over what points did you disagree with Salmonchile?
We believe that the proposed regulations will push the government in Chile to go down the wrong path and increase the costs and risks of the salmon farming industry without solving the underlying problem. Chile industry needs profound and strict regulations that are predictable and permanent.
Now you have left the trade organisation how do you intend to approach the authorities to enforce your views?
Unfortunately, salmon farming in Chile is currrently not sustainable and this has to change. Salmon farming may be the most important industry in the future and Marine Harvest Chile will continue to work to achieve tighter regulations. Our authorities should adopt best practices that have been implemented in other successful salmon producing countries when establishing new regulations to lead the industry, continue to work and want to be a contribution to achieve a sustainable industry in Chile, including better biological conditions, economic performance and stable jobs.
Salmonchile's response
Meanwhile, Felipe Sandoval, president of Salmonchile, said he shares MH’s "call to work urgently towards a model based on limiting production by geographical area based on the health and environmental outcomes of those areas."
"At the same time," he adds, "we agree that to become more competitive and operate at lower costs without causing health and environmental issues there should be fewer, larger concessions, which are more spaced out and offer a greater flexibility of where to produce salmon."
However, Sandoval points out that implementing this change is neither immediately possible, nor is it in the hands of Salmonchile.
"Marine Harvest hopes that all changes are made immediately. However, given the rules of free competition, the legal and regulatory aspects, the Fisheries Act, other restrictions and execution times determined by the government, its implementation is not possible in the short term, nor does it depend on Salmonchile. The government is making regulatory changes in stages, which is accepted by most companies, on the basis that all the changes occur as swiftly as possible,” he said.
