Chile: "We need a national vision for salmon farming"

SalmonChile organized the first edition of 'Salmon Summit 2024: Powering Chilean salmon farming to 2050'. More than 1,200 people including industry leaders, politicians, academics, economists, and civil society representatives came to Frutillar, Llanquihue, Los Lagos region, in southern Chile, to discuss the challenges and opportunities of salmon farming in the country.

The day opened with a keynote speech by the former President of the Republic of Chile, Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle, who remarked that "the salmon industry has been the engine of growth in southern Chile over the last 30 years." It was followed by a panel to discuss salmon farming, economic development, and social welfare; a second block in which the topic of environmental sustainability was addressed; and a final part in which the discussion was about how to promote salmon farming in Chile by 2050.

At the closing of the event, the president of SalmonChile, Arturo Clément, expressed his satisfaction with the outcome of the summit and the quality of the participating speakers and panelists. "I end with the conclusion of many of them: we need a national vision for salmon farming. We need an aquaculture towards 2050 where everyone in this country can generate value, where we can have a permanent policy, and where we can really feed the world from Chile," he summarized.

Chile's salmon industry: 2050 target

The 'Salmon Summit 2024' - the first edition of an event with a clear vocation for permanence - aimed to learn about the different existing views in Chile regarding this productive sector in order to be able to contribute them in the future to the development of public policies on salmon farming.

"We want to project ourselves towards and grow responsibly to 2050, we do not want them to make our activity disappear or diminish, we want them to listen to us, to dialogue and, in this way, contribute to Chile's growth," said Arturo Clément at the beginning of the day.

"Unfortunately, there are many negative signals, a lack of confidence, of understanding and knowing what we do. We need certainty to move forward. There is a lack of understanding of the value of our industry, there is a lack of respect for the people of the south and we are being drowned out by the competition," he continued.

These fears of SalmonChile's President were made even more specific in the words of the country's former President Eduardo Frei. After recalling that everything achieved by the Chilean salmon industry in the last 30 years has been done without any investment by the State, he claimed in the next 30 years the sector needs to double and it has the capacity, the people, and the investments to do so. "We cannot accept that they destroy this with a bad Aquaculture Law," he concluded.

Economic development and social welfare

Following Clément and Frei's speeches, Marcela Bravo, SalmonChile's Director of Studies and Projects, moderated a panel discussion on salmon farming, economic development, and social welfare, which included Raphael Bergoeing, President of the National Commission for Evaluation and Productivity, and Josefa Monge, President of the Sistema B Chile Business Council.   

In it, the President of the Confederation of Production and Commerce (CPC), Ricardo Mewes, said the State has to be a partner of the private sector. "We have to be a whole: the country, the Government, the businessmen, the civil society, that we are all rowing towards a single north," he said. "And that is done together," he continued, "in a powerful public-private partnership, which allows us to go to conquer the markets that Chile, in fact, competes permanently."

For his part, the President of the National Commission for Evaluation and Productivity, Raphael Bergoeing, emphasized the need for a long-term national policy for the development of this productive sector.

The salmon industry, he said, "has a role in terms of looking beyond the cage itself. And the State has a fundamental responsibility with regard to the discussion of permits, for example, which has taken place to generate a regulatory framework that allows investment to exist and to be an investment that is also in the public interest."

Finally, the President of the Sistema B Chile Business Council, Josefa Monge, expressed her satisfaction that the industry "is wondering questions about how it wants to see itself in the coming years and taking on the challenges with dialogue, without excluding anyone."

And, facing the future of the industry under debate, she recalled that "companies that are not thinking about their circularity, in their forms of regeneration, in all the new forms of sustainability that are coming, are late and will not reach the year 2050. That is what we are going to ask of all companies."

Salmon farming and environmental stewardship

Under the theme 'Environmental Sustainability: Salmon farming and environmental stewardship are compatible', the second block of the 'Salmon Summit 2024' focused on the environment. This included a presentation by the former senator and current executive vice-president of the Fundación Encuentros del Futuro, Guido Girardi, another by the executive director of the NGO Oceana Chile, Liesbeth van der Meer, and a third by the general manager of Biomar Chile, Derek Kohn.

Focusing on the fact that aquaculture is a strategic opportunity for Chile in the 21st century and on the importance of this protein in the world's food supply - one of the main problems in the future due to climate change -, Guido Girardi said that although salmon farming has advanced and improved, it can still do much more for the good of salmon farming itself, of the country, and of increased productivity.

"Think that when an activity loses 15% of its product as a consequence of environmental problems, which translates into diseases, which also forces it to use antibiotics as a palliative, because if there were no environmental problems, it would not have to use so many antibiotics, it would generate more wealth, it would generate more credibility, more social license, there would be more development, more employment and there would not be the suspicion that exists today in society, often unjust," reflected the Executive Vice-President of the Foundation Encounters of the Future.

Precisely the use of antibiotics in salmon farming - an issue that worries the country to the point that in March the salmon industry and the Government signed an alliance to reduce it - was the topic addressed by the executive director of the NGO Oceana Chile, Liesbeth van der Meer.

Under the title 'Views from the other side', she also addressed other sensitive issues such as escapes, overproduction, and transparency. "We have a different, but I think not opposing view," she said while valuing this summit as a space to confront different points of view respectfully. "We are also an important participant in decision-making, but we also have to listen and that is what we are doing," she added.

Exporting food but also knowledge

Before the closing, the last block of the event was held, where the conversation revolved around the question 'How to promote salmon farming in Chile by 2050'. The former Minister of Defense, Vivianne Blanlot; the Secretary General of SOFOFA (the most representative business institution in Chile), Rodrigo Yáñez; the academic director of the Master in Public Policy at the University of Chile, Óscar Landerretche; and the director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research (INCAR), Renato Quiñones, participated.

While Vivianne Blanlot pointed out that it is necessary to leave behind some prejudices that exist among certain political sectors concerning private enterprise, the secretary general of SOFOFA, Rodrigo Yáñez, said that "there must be a national vision regarding the future development of salmon farming. And in that the drive and support of the State and the Government is fundamental."

Yáñez also recalled that the sector is already Chile's second-largest exporter. "This particular industry today is already positioned as the second largest exporter of goods, but also as an important consumer of high-tech services related to sustainability and which, in turn, are exportable industries in themselves," he said. A view shared by academic Óscar Landerretche.

"The great challenge this area [South of Chile] has with its salmon industry, with the fishing industry in general, is to give density to a project of formation of its own cultural elites, of its own technical training school, to be a center where not only food is produced and exported to the world, but also knowledge. And that people from the rest of the world come here. That people come here to research, to study, to undertake. That is the next step," said Landerretche.

Finally, the director of INCAR, Renato Quiñones, stressed the need to link the industry with conservation and to do so through science. "The Aquaculture Law that is going to be discussed, what you would hope is that all the knowledge that has been acquired in the last 25, 30 years, where the State in addition and the industry have invested in science, in knowledge, can become part of the Parliament's decision making to have a legislation based on knowledge and not only on perceptions, for one side or the other," he said. "I think that's the role of science," he added, "Science helps ground the conversation."

To conclude the day of analysis and dialogue that this 'Salmon Summit 2024' has meant for Chilean salmon farming, the President of SalmonChile, Arturo Clément, emphasized the need to look beyond the industry itself. In his opinion, "a complete modernization of the State is required, beyond what happens to us as salmon farmers. I believe that the State requires a redesign and to rise to the challenges that have been raised here," he said.

Thus, making a comparison with Norway, the main competitor of Chilean salmon farming in international markets, Clément added that "the Norwegian State is modern and is on a par with, if not ahead of, the private sector. And that is the big difference. Today we have better environmental and productive indicators than they do, but we have higher costs due to the tangle of regulations that talk to each other. So that is the difference. A State that has knowledge and that goes hand in hand with the private sector."