Chile's aquaculture sector harvested more than half a million tonnes up to May.

Antibiotics use increases

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Christian Perez

Aquachile For example, Aquachile, which launched its Sustainability Report 2014 yesterday, revealed an average consumption of 512 grams of antibiotics per tonne of salmon harvested last year.

This is significantly higher than the 183g/tonne average the company used in 2011, 266g/tonne in 2012 and 304g/tonne in 2013. According to Aquachile "in 2014 there was an increase in the use of antibiotics due to the increase of SRS in the case of trout and Atlantic salmon. Regarding Pacific salmon, the increase is because many farms were supposed to finish harvesting in late 2013 and were postponed to 2014 ".

Cermaq Chile Cermaq, which presented its report in Spanish yesterday too, reported 279.1g of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) used per tonne of fish produced (LWE) in their sites. By comparison, the company used an average of 230.27g in 2013 and 47.7g in 2012.

According to the company, the use of antibiotics increased in 2014, especially in Chile, due to the treatment of SRS. "Antibiotics are used only when strictly necessary and only once approved for use by a licensed veterinarian," said the company, adding that they are working on the development of vaccines against SRS, a bacterial disease that is the main reason for using of antibiotics in the Chilean salmon industry.

Los Fiordos Although the salmon division of Agrosuper did not provide detailed figures about their use in previous years, probably because this is their first sustainability report, the document released by the company earlier this month reported the use of about 578 grams of active ingredient per harvested tonne.

According to the firm, they expect to reduce this figure by 15% by the middle of next year.

Salmones Camanchaca

Camanchaca achieved a decrease in their use of antimicrobials, from 792g per tonne LWE in 2013, to 420g last year.

They also revealed that they are working together with the Association of the Chilean Salmon Industry and its members in the development of several lines of investigation in order to decrease the use of antibiotics, including the development of effective vaccines, specific diets and genetic selection.

All the above values are in line with the data reported by Sernapesca in late June 2015, when the service reported an increase in the consumption of antibiotics in the Chilean salmon industry, both in nominal terms and in proportion to the tonnage of fish produced.