Sowings to be decreased in the north of Aysén

Christian Pérez According to the information published in the financial journal Pulso, the Chilean government will adopt this decision to avoid a new sanitary crisis, like that occurred in 2007 and 2008 with ISA virus. The proposal was triggered by the extremely high abundances of sea lice seen in the past months. As an average, over 10 percent of all salmon farming sites in Chile have had too high sea lice abundances (more than 9 lice per fish) in the past 10 weeks. This restriction will affect those farming sites located in the "macro region 6", where pathogenic strains of ISA virus were found in two cages last month. Southern Cross Seafood, Blumar, Camanchaca, Cultivos Yadrán, Los Fiordos, Multiexport, Friosur and AquaChile hold farming sites in operation in that area. Sources close to the Chilean government said that this restriction will probably reduce sowings by 25 percent in the "macro region 6". Likewise, according to a study conducted by the University of Chile, this macro region was expected to produce 186,220 tonnes of salmonids this year and 226,018 tonnes in 2014.