New Salmon Research Center Opens In Chile

Chile’s salmon business has suffered under the effects of disease in recent months, but one company is on the hunt for solutions.

EWOS Innovations, the research arm of a Norway-based aquaculture giant Cermaq, just opened Chile’s first state-of-the-art research facility near Puerto Montt. EWOS is the largest feed supplier to salmon aquaculture operations in the country. Cermaq, its parent company, also owns Mainstream, one of Chile’s biggest producers of farmed salmon.

Researchers at the EWOS research center in Calbuco, southwest of Puerto Montt, are focused on developing salmon feed formulations that will boost the fish’s immune resistance to parasites and disease – the biggest obstacles to Chile’s once booming salmon industry.

The center also dedicates significant resources to replacing fish meal in salmon feed with other sources of animal and plant protein, in the face of declining stocks (and rising prices) of feed species.

Chile is the world’s No. 2 producer of farmed salmon, right behind Norway. The sector raked in US$2.2 million in 2007, but this year’s figures are likely to be less impressive, as farms have been plagued with sea lice and Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA). The rapid spread of ISA through Chile’s Regions X, XI and XII has forced many salmon farms closures, resulting in signficant layoffs (PT, July 15).

“If you ask me, the biggest problem for the industry is sea lice,” said Javier Gonzalez, general manager of EWOS Innovation Chile. “They create a lot of stress on the fish and suppress their immune systems. If we are able to control the sea lice, we solve a lot of the problem.”

Sea lice are a proven ISA vector in Norway, and Gonzalez suspects the same to be true for Chile. Salmon farms have attempted to ward off the parasite with drugs, but have not succeeded well.

Read the full article in the Patagonia Times.