Production back to normal in early 2010?
In conjunction with the authorities, president César Barros of SalmonChile announced that the salmon industry is officially implementing a series of immediate measures and structural changes in its production model to treat the resulting sanitary crisis from the spread of ISA. Barros says SalmonChile has calculated what it will cost industry to realize such changes, and comments in the Llanquihue, “The authorities know that we are going to need US$ 250 million, and we are in conversations with the government to see what it can do to help us finance this cost.” The expensive changes that Barros refers to are in many cases the most basic sanitary operational procedures established for years in other countries, such as obligatory fallow periods; all in and all out transfers of fish to seawater farms; maximum time limits for grow-out; prohibition of fish transfers between farms; and bacterial and virus treatment of all effluents from salmon processing plants. And with the implementation of these changes SalmonChile claims that they will have a handle on the ISA problem by the end of 2009. Throughout 2009 the production levels of Atlantic salmon continue to decline, but the production levels of trout and coho are expected to increase. Since these species are unaffected by the current strain of ISA affecting the Atlantics, an increase in trout and coho production should compensate to some degree the overall drop in production in 2009.
