Chilean farmers bid to keep mortality, medicine and lice load details private
Publication 'would offer commercial advantage to overseas rivals'
Thirteen salmon farming companies in Chile have gone to court to prevent the release of detailed information about the performance of their farms being passed to a private company, Ceres BCA, under a freedom of information decree, reports Fish Farming Expert's Chilean sister site, Salmonexpert.cl.
They say the information requested from state aquaculture agency Sernapesca is commercially sensitive and would expose Chilean companies to international competitors “such as those based in Norway, Scotland or Canada”, who could “adjust their own supply strategies, prices, volumes and harvest windows”.
Ceres BCA offers services to support the management of risks related to animal and plant health, food safety and quality, and animal welfare and environmental sustainability.
According to its website, its aquaculture-related work in 2025 included a salmon compartment audit and risk assessment, construction of a smolt quality score in salmon to predict productive health performance, and strategic drafting, based on data analysis and regulatory review, of requirements and requests to the authorities by salmon companies.
Weekly mortalities
A Ceres BCA employee, Roberto Montt Garrido, has requested three sets of data per farm from January 2025. Montt wants information about:
- Weekly mortalities (with fields such as farm type, community, species, stage, number of fish, average weight, density and mortality by cause);
- The use of pharmacological products declared (including active ingredient, route of administration, dosage, quantities and dates of treatment);
- Parasitic loads declared by marine farms.
Sernapesca responded to the request by withholding some of the information from farmers who objected to its release, and releasing the information from farmers who didn’t object. Montt filed an appeal with the Council for Transparency (CPLT), which upheld his claim and ordered the release of the information withheld.
Court of Appeal
In response, the fish farmers have filed two claims of illegality before the Court of Appeals of Puerto Montt which has ordered the suspension of the delivery of information until the cases are resolved.
The companies argue that the required information is protected by a confidentiality clause of the Transparency Law, which protects information whose disclosure would affect commercial or economic rights.
