Chilean Salmon Farming on the Horizon of Sustainability: Review of the Development of a Highly Intensive Production, the ISA Crisis and Implemented Actions to Reconstruct a More Sustainable Aquaculture Industry - Aquaculture and the Environment: A Shared Destiny - page 216

The success of the salmon aquaculture in Chile has been the product of the appropriate
assimilation of foreign technologies and development of local technological capabilities.
Although national investors played a major role in the early development phases of the
industry, the entry of large foreign companies in the last two decades has facilitated the
introduction of technologies, enlargement of production, vertical integration, merging and
increasing the size of companies. This industry has also contributed to the general
development of the economically depressed and rural regions in southern Chile. Although
the Chilean salmon aquaculture has performed an astonishing development over the last 20
years, there have been demonstrated severe knowledge gaps before and during the
devastating sanitary crisis caused by the infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) outbreaks that
nearly led to a collapse of the industry.
The aim of the present chapter is to give an overview of the salmon aquaculture in Chile.
Firstly, we describe how salmon farming rose up in a country without native salmonids, and
the succeeding establishment of a highly organized and globalized industry. Secondly, we
review the congestion of disease problems that peaked with the ISA outbreak that nearly
collapsed the whole Chilean salmon industry, and finally the strategies and concrete
measurements that have been implemented by the authorities and the industry to remerge
the salmon aquaculture in Chile.
2. The Chilean salmon industry
The interest in introducing salmon to the water bodies of Chile began in second half of the
19th century with the first import of salmon and trout eggs in 1885 (Bluth et al., 2003). In
1905, the first Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ) and rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ) eggs
were imported and successfully produced in Chile (Bluth et al., 2003). Since 1920s
government institutions carried out several attempts to introduce Pacific and Chinook
salmon in lakes and rivers driven by the interest on sport fishing. However, it was not
until 1969 when the program to introduce Pacific salmon in Chile was formalized by an
agreement between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Fisheries
Association of Japan, and the Chilean National Fishing Agency. As a part of the project,
salmon fish farms with egg incubation facilities were constructed and also a training
program carried out in Japan. In order to strengthen this sector, the Chilean government
created the Office of the Undersecretariat for Fisheries (Subpesca) and the National
Service for Fisheries (Sernapesca) under the Ministry of Economy, Development and
Reconstruction in 1978. In 1974, the first private initiative to farm rainbow trout took place
in Chile; hence, the company Sociedad de Pesquerías Piscicultura Lago Llanquihue Ltda
had successfully exported trout to France, and soon after, Chilean farmed trout reached
North America and other countries in Europe. During the 1980s, Fundación Chile, a
private and non-profit organization played an essential role in the development of salmon
aquaculture supporting technical and commercial issues toward large-scale salmon
farming. It also focused on research and the implementation of new technology for raising
salmon, artificial reproduction, behavioural studies and breeding, as well as the creation
and exploitation of new fresh and seawater farm sites (Bluth et al., 2003). One of the final
state initiatives to introduce salmon in Chile was through the cooperation between the
Subpesca and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This was
implemented by Hatfield Consultants Incorporate that technically advised many
companies and fish farms and supported to consolidate companies operating as a