Chilean Salmon E-Book

Teodoro Wigodski

• Herausgeber: JC Sáez Editor
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 301

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Chilean Salmon: Shared Responsibility offers a revealing look at salmon aquaculture in Chile, an industry at the crossroads of business ethics and environmental sustainability. Through an engaging narrative, Teodoro Wi- godski S., a distinguished academic and business director, explores the com- plexities and challenges of this prominent industry, which is vital to both the national economy and global well-being. Drawing from his experience as president of the Puerto Montt Port Company and his handling of the ISA virus crisis, Wigodski delves deeply into the con- flicts with local communities and environmental organizations, highlighting the opportunities for a development that respects economic, social, and en- vironmental values. This book is the result of rigorous research, including visits and interviews in both Chile and Norway. This journey, both intellectual and physical, not only unveils the internal challenges faced by the industry but also serves as a call to action to foster sustainable practices. Poised to become an essential resource in the debate over the future of aqua- culture, the book functions as an educational tool for students and profes- sionals from various disciplines. More than a mere collection of data, the work invites dialogue about shared responsibility in the sustainable develop- ment of the salmon industry. Discover the intricate relationship between business ethics, environmental sustainability, and economic development. This book is essential reading for those committed to building a future where harmony between industry and nature prevails.

Leseprobe

© Teodoro Wigodski Sirebrenik

eISBN: 978-956-306-195-6 (digital book English edition)

ISBN: 978-956-306-185-7 (paper book Spanish edition)

eISBN: 978-956-306-184-0 (digital book Spanish edition)

Cover image: Courtesy of Multi X

Design and layout: Jeju Jure de la Cerda

First edition: May 2024

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CONTENT

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

1. A story to start

The initial impulse

The will to develop

The industrial era

Preliminary lessons from history

2. The salmon industry in Chile today

Value added

Exports

Production chains

Employment

Social impact

Structure and competitive dynamics

Chile vs Norway

Some ideas for the future

3. Understanding the process to understand the discussions

Ova’s production

Frying and smolt production

Fattening and harvesting at sea

From the sea to processing plants

A global look at the regulatory framework and the institutional framework

What’s happening in Norway?

Lessons from the process

4. Where can we locate?

Location of the centers

Relocation of centers

Concessions in Protected Natural Areas

Type of environmental assessment

Concessions in cause of forfeiture

And how is it done in Norway?

Some tentative conclusions

5. In the background of environmental debates

How many fish can be grown?

What happens at the bottom of the sea?

Fighting infections and pests

Fish escape

Fish can die

What do salmon eat?

Salmon vs. other animal proteins

Debating the debates

6. Workers and their demands

Workers’ demands

Nevertheless, the community and the divers themselves recognize that progress has been made.

A present task, key to the future

7. The communities

What is the social license to operate?

Now that we are needed

However, salmon farming has changed our lives

And tourism...?

Salmon industry must remain, but not in any way

The industry today is not the same as it was thirty years ago

Returning to the social license to operate

8. Civil society organizations

What are the issues?

Is a dialogue possible?

9. And... the companies

A cluster as a local or regional innovation system

Bad practices do exist

Almost final thoughts

10. A tentative roadmap

A framework for action

Necessary actions

An epilogue for the beginning

Bibliographic references

Interviews

Ethical statements by the author

Conflict of interest

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants involved in the study.

Financing

This research was funded by the author.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With deep gratitude, I wish to express my most sincere thanks to all the people and institutions that contributed significantly in the creation of this book, “Chilean Salmon: A Shared Responsibility”. Their valuable contributions and support were fundamental to carry out this work.

First, I would like to thank the leaders of the different union and community organizations in the X and XII Regions of Chile. Their generosity in receiving us and dedicating their time to answer our numerous questions and doubts was essential to understand the complexity of the salmon industry in the country.

I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the professionals from Non-Governmental Organizations who shared their valuable experiences and opinions with us. Their willingness to dialogue openly and provide us with their research papers and materials greatly enriched our perspective on this important topic.

I would also like to thank the executives and collaborators of Multi X for their transparency and willingness to allow us to learn about their operations. Their cooperation was fundamental to obtain a comprehensive view of the salmon industry.

I would like to thank the leaders and executives of Salmon Chile, Instituto Tecnológico del Salmón and Consejo del Salmón for their willingness to answer our questions, no matter how uncomfortable they might be. Their collaboration was essential to address the challenges facing this industry.

I would like to highlight the valuable work of the Metadiálogos research team, especially its executive director, Marcelo Monsalves. Their professionalism in the collection of information and in the in-depth discussions on the manuscripts was fundamental in shaping this book.

Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family. To my dear wife Teresa, our daughters Sabrina and Karina, and granddaughter Emma, for their understanding and unwavering support during the moments dedicated to this project, as well as for agreeing to allocate financial resources to its realization.

To all of you, thank you very much for your invaluable contribution to this book. Your generosity and support have been instrumental in this shared endeavor to understand and address the challenges of the salmon industry in Chile.

FOREWORD

In the complex and dynamic world of companies and business, we are often faced with challenges that exceed our initial expectations. This book, entitled “Chilean Salmon: A Shared Responsibility”, is the result of a deep and extensive research that originated from the desire to prepare an academic article to enrich the teaching of the course “Ethics in the Market, the Company and Business”. I have taught this course during the last decade in Industrial Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Chile and the Faculty of Law of the Adolfo Ibáñez University.

As I delved into the intricate complexities of the salmon industry in Chile, I soon realized that this research needed to go deeper into what was known, or more precisely, what was thought to be known about this industry. The initial intention of creating a traditional academic paper turned into the challenging task of exploring in depth every aspect of this complex industry.

My first foray into the vast and fascinating world of Chilean salmon dates to my chairmanship on the board of Empresa Portuaria de Puerto Montt, a position I held from 2005 to 2010. During that period, I had the opportunity to learn about the industry’s operating standards, and I found myself at the epicenter of the crisis triggered by the ISA virus. Those years were marked by the devastation of salmon stocks, the tragic loss of direct and indirect jobs, the bankruptcy of salmon companies and their suppliers, and the uncertainty that overwhelmed managers, investors, financiers, and regulators on how to face and overcome this complex situation.

The aquaculture industry, centered on the export of salmon and trout, has emerged as one of Chile’s most preeminent, second only to copper and lithium mining exports. Despite its roots going back 150 years and its remarkable evolution, the industry has experienced a recent stagnation, albeit justified for a variety of reasons. In addition, the media has witnessed the conflicts that this industry has had with local communities, sectorial authorities, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders.

From a pedagogical perspective, I conceived this business case as a topic of attractive value for the study of undergraduate and graduate students in various disciplines of knowledge, ranging from the social sciences to the exact sciences. The unique characteristics of the salmon industry invited a rigorous analysis of a complex and highly dynamic socio-technical system.

This book aspires to be much more than a compendium of data and facts; it seeks to constitute a significant contribution to the ongoing debate among the protagonists of this story, because maintaining the status quo would certainly lead to the destruction of the economic, social and environmental value that, on the contrary, this industry is capable of generating in a sustainable manner. In order to carry out this project in a scientific manner, a rigorous bibliographic and field research was carried out, including visits and interviews with almost forty representatives of the sector, both in Santiago and in the regions where salmon farming takes place. In addition, visiting to Norway enabled me to get a close look at the industry of the market leader in the export market and Chile’s main competitor.

The result of this research is a comprehensive and holistic appreciation of the situation. I am confident that it will provide a solid basis for seeking constructive alignment of the relevant stakeholders in the salmon industry, with the goal of driving the production of a food source of the highest quality protein for a growing world population.

I invite you to delve into the following pages, where we will describe the obstacles and the inevitable responsibility that we all share, to make viable an efficiently social and environmental sustainable development of the Chilean salmon industry, increasing its relevance both to our national society and for the international markets where these products are exported.

I hope you find this book useful for a deeper understanding of the salmon industry and its importance in society and the global economy.

Teodoro Wigodski S.May 2024

INTRODUCTION

Aquaculture consists of the exploitation of aquatic organisms for productive and commercial purposes through the intervention of the breeding process, with the purpose of improving the product and ensuring the ownership of the cultured stock. As a food supply process, as far as we know, its antecedents date back more than 4,000 years. Currently, aquaculture provides between 46% and 49% of the annual production of seafood products that humanity consumes each year (FAO, 2020; Choudhury, Lepine, & Good, 2023; Ford, Billing, Hughes, & Adam, 2022) and consumption of aquaculture products is expected to increase by 15% by 2030 (FAO, 2022).

In a world where animal protein consumption is projected to increase by 52% by 2050 (Meller & Cerda, 2020),this industry is strategically vital for world food security, due to the systematic decline of capture fisheries due to stock depletion caused by overexploitation, ocean pollution, rising average water temperatures and the lack of global fisheries management. On the other hand, the enormous environmental impacts of the production of other proteins from livestock make it complex to assume its growth.

Chile is the seventh largest aquaculture power in the world and the first in the Americas. Within the aquaculture industry, salmon production is undoubtedly the main industry. This industry has had an extraordinary development in the last 38 years. Chile is responsible for 31% of salmon production worldwide, only after Norway (Bergoeing & Doña, 2023). Salmon is the third product in the Chilean export matrix, after copper and lithium (Consejo del Salmón, 2023). Although it represents 2.1% of the Gross Domestic Product, country’s GDP1, if we remove copper mining from the analysis, we conclude that the contribution of the salmon industry to the increase in the value added of the GDP of the non-copper natural resources sector was 28% between 1996 and 2019, equivalent to MM USD 2,142, only comparable to fruit farming.

This phenomenon is the result of a long history that began around 150 years ago with the introduction of the first salmon and trout eggs in Chile’s rivers and estuaries which prospered thanks to public and private persistence in an endeavor that, for several decades, had only unsatisfactory or uncertain results. However, today, as the country rises as one of the world leaders in the industry, in an unbeatable international context of increasing demand and price, salmon farming in Chile is under siege.

The environmental impact of the activity, the dispute over coastal space with other activities, the conflicts with local communities and indigenous peoples, the public discussion with environmental groups, the public policy that fluctuates between caring for a key activity and responding to its environmental protection objectives, the industry’s union entrenchment, together with a public opinion that tends to distrust the background and true intentions of the business community, generates a risky scenario, not only for the growth of the sector, but also for its long-term projection. In fact, some voices close to the industry, in view of the rapid development of new production technologies and the entry of new players in the international market, have warned of the danger of replacement if the socio-political risks looming over the activity are not satisfactorily overcome.

The industry has sought to address these risks through union lobbying, media debate, legal complaints, functional support operations for local communities and disputes over the public narrative through more or better information. All the above is based on a “corporate entrenchment” that puts the industry on the defensive and in the position of a victim. From our perspective, such an operation leads the industry down the exact opposite path to obtain what it needs to grow and project itself: social license to operate (SLO). That is, the acceptance of the industry and its local operations by the communities where it is installed, the society and the groups that are part of it. Acceptance that does not depend directly on the information, reason, rationale or legality of a given position, but on the quality of the relationships that the actors are able to build.

At the heart of SLO is the trust that global society and local communities place in a company or industry based on its technical ability to meet operational, legal and ethical standards, its compliance record and its honesty or transparency. Trust, however, is an intangible social fabric that is woven slowly and easily broken, and is indispensable for business, social and public actors to relate positively at low cost, in the pursuit of common objectives and the construction of a shared destiny. For this reason, it is essential to protect it with special care from opportunistic and short-term temptations that tarnish this collective effort, staining with their trail of petty ambition the effort of a majority to comply with the ethical standards that the times demand and that are essential to our future.

However, social development, understood as a continuous process of added complexity of society, its actors and the dynamics of their relationships, together with democratic progress, evidence of environmental crisis and the explosive development of digital communication, impose new and increasing operational and ethical standards on companies. Therefore, SLO is not only becoming more arduous to obtain but also particularly difficult to maintain. It demands a coherent approach and a systematic and true effort, based on solid convictions about the need to build mutually enriching relationships between legitimate and necessary parties. The old approach based on managing negative externalities through specific transactions with communities is definitely outdated. Companies must integrate the economic and social development of the communities to which they belong into the definition of their own value chain. In other words, the company must be able to create shared value or it will not be able to create any value at all.

According to Michael Porter and Mark Kramer “the concept of shared value can be defined as the policies and operational practices that enhance a company’s competitiveness while helping to improve economic and social conditions in the communities where it operates. Creating shared value focuses on identifying and expanding the connections between economic and social progress” (Porter & Kramer, 2011) and, we should also add, environmentally. According to these authors “both economic and social progress must be addressed using value-focused principles. Value is defined by benefits in relation to costs, not just profits. Value creation is a long-recognized idea in business, where profits are revenues received from customers minus costs incurred. However, companies have rarely approached societal problems from a value perspective and have limited themselves to treating them as peripheral issues. This has obscured the connections between economic and social concerns” (Porter & Kramer, 2011). Shared value differs from the classic concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in that CSR focuses primarily on reputation and has a limited connection to the business (Porter & Kramer, 2011), making these programs difficult to justify, economically, in the short term, let alone sustain in the long term. On the other hand, traditional CSR programs, conceived as the implementation of social welfare actions isolated from the business, tend to imply suspicion about the real intentions and interests behind them, especially in contexts where distrust, a history of misunderstandings and the interest of communities in being involved in their future and not just objects of compensation prevail.

In this book I propose a journey through the history of the salmon industry in Chile and its development logic configuring its current situation. I will begin with a historical perspective, fundamental in order to understand the industry’s structure and to distinguish some of its ongoing key elements. Subsequently, I will make a documented exposition on the state of the activity and its competitive position with the purpose of establishing what we refer to as salmon industry. In the following chapters I will present in a general and specific way the debates and controversies surrounding salmon farming in Chile, as well as in Norway, seeking to scrupulously separate myth from reality. In the final chapters I will present the main positions that make up the scenario of the controversy over salmon production. This will enable us to discuss about the required conditions and possible spaces to obtain a Social License to Operate that will allow the industry to generate conditions for its sustainability and projection. The closing arguments will include a set of recommendations and suggestions for the actors involved, with the aim of generating a “road map” for the sustainable development of a socially licensed industry.

The question driving this search is the conditions under which the salmon industry is sustainable in the long term. The fundamental hypothesis we propose is that the salmon industry, as we know it, runs a serious socio-political risk that threatens its subsistence if it does not obtain a quality Social License to Operate, based on the perspective of creating shared value for the communities and regions where it operates. In other words, we believe that if an industry cannot generate sustainable value for the communities where it is installed, it cannot generate sustainable value for its shareholders and the country. Thus, the dispute for the hegemony of the public narrative of the industry and its practical sustainability is played first and foremost at the local level (community, communal and regional) in economic, operational, regulatory, ethical and cultural terms. And such a process, which will take time, implies a change in the approach on which business operates in relation to its environment.

The perspective of the analysis has been, from the beginning, to abandon the logic of positions and trenches to obtain the broadest and most unprejudiced possible understanding of the situation, enabling us to identify and qualify in a well-founded manner each of the variables or aspects that are part of the debate. To this end, we have made an extensive review of the specialized literature and journalistic material. We have had extensive conversations with representatives of local communities, including representatives of indigenous peoples, industry, workers, non-governmental organizations and sectorial authorities. We carried out a comprehensive physical tour of the Norwegian fjords and also of the national areas where the industry has set up, and we were privileged to learn about the entire production process from the egg to the packaged product, ready to be shipped to the different markets. If we failed to consult directly with any actor or relevant person or interested party, it can only be due to the ignorance of the author or a refusal to a requested interview, never because of an intentional bias of omission. Thinking of Chile, we hope that this expository and analytical effort will contribute to a necessary and broad debate by all legitimately interested parties on the salmon industry so that, finally, those of us who are here today and the generations to come can live in a better country.

1. A STORY TO START

The history of the salmon industry in Chile is much longer than is usually believed, and it is worth considering it, even if only in general terms, in order to understand where we are today and thus being able to draw useful conclusions for the future.

Overall, the process of salmonid introduction and farming in Chile can be divided into three stages. An initial pioneering impulse, promoted by the State and characterized by scarce results and a lot of learning. A second stage based on a public policy effort with a developmentalist imprint and finally, a third phase of accelerated industrial growth that gave the sector the form we know today.

The initial impulse

The history of salmon farming begins in 1748, in northern Germany, in a small village called Hohenhausen. There, the farmer Stephan Ludwig Jacobi performed for the first time an artificial insemination of trout and salmon, succeeding in breeding fish to adult size. However, Jacobi’s great innovation did not have a major impact, despite his efforts to disseminate it, until the middle of the 19th century, when France took on the development of fish farming as a state policy.

In Chile, the business elite of the second half of the 19th century, closely connected to Europe, had news of these advances, and quickly conceived the possibility of developing the fish farming industry south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Thus, towards the end of that century, the first attempts were made to introduce salmon in the rivers of the south of the country. First, the entrepreneur José Tomás Urmeneta in 1875 and then Isidora Goyenechea in 1885 (Carrera, 2020). These initiatives, in practical terms, were a total failure, but they marked the beginning of a possibility that opened the way to the industry as we know it today.

In 1901, German Riesco, President of Chile, commissioned Federico Albert, a German resident and considered the father of natural resource conservation in Chile, “to demonstrate the possibility of acclimatization of salmon in Chile” (Golusda, 1907). His study was completed the following year, and his report concludes on the effective possibility of acclimatization and breeding of salmonids in the country. These results led the government of the time to allocate the necessary resources to build the first fish farm in the country in 1903.

The following year, Albert was commissioned by the Chilean government to learn about the latest fish farming techniques developed in Europe. On this trip, Albert hires German experts and acquires in that country, eggs, and resources necessary to start the reproduction process. Overcoming countless inconveniences and technical challenges on his return trip and after several months, he managed to implement the first industrial salmonid fish farming in the country. Thus, by the end of 1905, he managed to obtain around 200,000 smolts, juvenile salmon, which were distributed in different rivers in the center and south of the country. At the same time, the German experts hired by the Chilean government again traveled to Europe to learn about the new technological advances and to acquire eggs. Once again, the initiative culminated in the successful breeding of 170,000 smolts that were transported by rail to rivers located in the southern regions of Chile. In this context, the government approved the construction of new fish farming facilities in the center and south of the country.

From all this public effort, officials of the Ministry of Industry optimistically conclude that Chilean rivers are suitable for salmonid farming and predict that “in a short time all the rivers of Chile will be populated by a large number of these animals” (Golusda, 1907).

Between 1905 and 1910, egg imports and fry planting continued in different rivers in the southern zone of Chile. In 1914, the Lautaro Fish Farm was inaugurated, a new public facility that continues to operate to this day as a municipal project of the same commune, achieving considerable production levels by 1932 (Carrera, 2020).

Albert himself, enthusiastic with the results from this period, came to the conclusion that “there should not be a single estate in Chile that does not use its canals for fish farming, both for native and acclimatized fish, since an area of one hectare of water can produce some 200 to 400 kilograms of fish per year, when it is well cared for [...] Many poor lands are easy to convert into ponds and would produce a greater income than their agricultural exploitation [...] How many branches of estuaries could not be used in the republic for the breeding and fattening of such healthy fish [...].Many poor lands are easy to convert into lagoons and would produce an income greater than their agricultural exploitation [...] How many stretches of estuaries could not be used in the republic for the breeding and fattening of such healthy and lucrative food?” (Albert, 1913). However, for this to be possible, he advocated a strong State intervention to make risky investments that the private sector was not able to make, an effective regulation and more control to put an end to bad practices (such as dynamite fishing) and the training of professionals and technicians to project the development of the industry.

The will to develop

The Lautaro Fish Farm continued producing along with other public farming facilities, at such a rate that until 1937 important trout and salmon populations were established in various rivers and lakes in Chile (Carrera, 2020). In fact, the Lautaro Fish Farm managed to export salmon and trout eggs to Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Falkland Islands (England) or Malvinas Islands (Argentina), with a momentum that continued until 1957 (Carrera, 2020).

Some years earlier, in 1953, the salmonid farming station in Polcura, in the commune of Tucapel in the Biobío region, was inaugurated as a new public incentive for the activity. In fact, during these years, the Fishing and Hunting Division of the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG), which later became SERNAPESCA2 , financed and operated several public projects to introduce and stock Chile’s rivers with trout. It relied on the Instituto Tecnológico de Puerto Montt, under the Universidad Técnica del Estado, for the use and transfer of North American technology (Carrera, 2020). One of the technologies that the State promoted during this period was “ocean ranching”, which consists of raising fry, the early stage of development of salmon after they have hatched from their eggs and before they become smolts, in ponds and then releasing them into the sea so that, fulfilling their natural cycle, the adult individuals go up the rivers to spawn, where they are trapped. In 1968, the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG) carried out the first transfer of smolts from a fish farm to the sea with the purpose of understanding whether the fish could complete their natural development cycle, since “all the projects demonstrated technical feasibility, but there were no results in economic feasibility and their markets remained unknown” (Carrera, 2020).

Along with promoting the stocking of salmon and trout in Chile’s rivers, estuaries and fjords, the State also “devoted efforts to develop human capacities related to fisheries and the aquaculture sector with the creation of careers in marine biology, oceanography and fisheries engineering and established agencies dedicated to aquaculture research, such as the Instituto de Fomento Pesquero (IFOP) founded in the mid-1960s with the support of the Chilean government and FAO”3 (Carrera, 2020). IFOP was key in the development and consolidation of aquaculture in Chile, bringing to the country foreign experts who contributed knowledge and experience in salmon farming in its marine phase, a subject that until then was totally unknown.

In this context, SAG signed an agreement with the University of Washington in the USA to introduce Coho and Chinook salmon in southern Chile. Under this agreement, several fry were planted in different rivers and lakes, reared from eggs donated by North American institutions. The results were not as expected. There was an 80% mortality rate and political inconveniences that hindered the operation. Despite this, “the project marked a great progress in the knowledge of culture techniques, especially in issues related to diets, disease control and fish transport” (Carrera, 2020). This enabled the beginning of experimental salmon farming in cages, an effort that continued together with other public initiatives aimed at introducing trout and salmon in freshwater courses.

Around the same time, the increasing demands by coastal countries of their marine rights made it difficult for Japan to carry out intense fishing activities on the high seas. This forced Japan to seek new options for the development of its fishing industry. Thus, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) found in the seas of southern Chile an opportunity for salmon farming. Thus, in 1969 the governments of Chile and Japan signed an agreement whose objective was the introduction of salmon in the country (Shirahata, 2014). Under this agreement, SAG officials traveled to Japan in the early 1970s to train in salmon farming and management techniques. This effort enabled the development of an extensive public program of study and practical tests aimed at the introduction and rearing of salmon up to their marine stage, together with strenuous efforts to continue trying to plant in various river courses.

The Japanese JICA mission, set up in the late 1960s, continued its study and testing processes until 1987. In fact, the project achieved the importation and seeding of approximately 40 million eggs, which meant the release of 26 million juvenile salmon and constituted the largest and most continuous salmon transplantation effort in the southern hemisphere (Shirahata, 2014). And, although it did not achieve the objective of introducing this species as a wild population, it generated a broad base of knowledge and technical capacity that allowed the subsequent development of the industry.

The first formal commercial effort to grow salmon for the Japanese market in floating raft cages with eggs imported from the United States, took place in 1979 when the company Nichiro Chile Ltda. initiated the rearing of Coho salmon smolts produced by Sociedad de Pesquerías y Piscicultura Lago Llanquihue Ltda. That same year, Sociedad Pesquera Mytilus Ltda. made a large investment to farm salmon in lake areas and raise them in cages at sea. “It was the first company to use galvanized metal raft cages from Norway and to achieve interesting rates of salmon exports to the United States “ (Carrera, 2020).

And it was precisely because of this that in 1978 the Japanese company Nichiro GyoGyo began extensive research looking for the possibility of salmon farming in rivers and estuaries in southern Chile. In 1981 it obtained its first harvest of 130 tons of Coho salmon, a milestone that marked the beginning of industrial salmon farming in Chile. “Observing the success of the Japanese fishing company [...] subsequently large companies from both Chile and Norway came to participate in this industry and made production grow to the point of placing the country in a prominent place in salmon farming worldwide” (Shirahata, 2014 ).

The National Fishing and Aquaculture Service was created in 1978, separating itself from the SAG and beginning its activity as a supervisory body for fishing, fish farming and aquaculture.

From 1983 onwards, the authorities of the time made new resources available for the introduction of salmon in the southern part of the country, which allowed the development of new large-scale private projects. Finally, between 1985 and 1986, the public officials who had participated in this public policy effort since the 1960s left their respective positions in the public administration and joined private companies. It was precisely this transfer of knowledge and skills that marked the industrial take-off of the activity as we know it today.

The industrial era

In 1985 there were 36 farming centers operating and production rose to more than 1,200 tons of salmon per year. In a few years, Chile joined the group of producer countries playing in the major leagues. The State, for its part, continued to invest in supporting private initiatives through the Development Corporation (CORFO)4 and Fundación Chile5 . In 1986, production exceeded 2,100 tons. In 1987, there were 117 new cultivation centers (Carrera, 2020). Four years later, production reached 34,000 tons and seven years later it was 181,000 tons and by the year 2000 the figure of 350,000 tons was reached. In other words, in only fifteen years, production multiplied almost 300 times. An unprecedented growth phenomenon in the economic history of Chile and probably of the world.

In 1986, the Chilean Salmon and Trout Producers’ Association was formed, which in 2002 was renamed Salmon Chile, with 17 companies dedicated to the activity6 , which participate in different stages of the value chain. This business association, originally promoted by Fundación Chile, was created with the objective of generating a seal of quality for the production and promotion of Chilean salmon in world markets.

Between 1987 and 1988 Fundación Chile initiated a series of seminars and international efforts to promote the salmon industry, encourage investment and generate better conditions for the development of the activity (Carrera, 2020).

In 1989, the first formal regulation of marine aquaculture concessions and authorizations was created. The purpose was to generate conditions for an orderly exploitation of the coastal area, establishing free aquaculture concessions. However, this regulation had no practical application and was modified in 1991, establishing that the concessions would be marketable, inheritable, transferable and, in practice, perpetual. This regulation generated, as is obvious, a market for concessions that allowed a broad impulse and installation of marine farming centers in the south of Chile.

At the same time, in 1990, the reproduction of domestic Coho salmon eggs was initiated, a process that had been tested by the technical cooperation project with Japan two years earlier. This milestone is remembered as the first achievement of national emancipation from the supplier markets, which meant a relevant impulse for the industry and an important change in the salmon production cycle. In 2023 there are three Chilean genetic houses that produce embryonated eggs for the national industry.

In 1995, the Salmon Technological Institute, INTESAL, was created at the initiative of the Salmon Chile trade association with the purpose of introducing improvements in production and improving sanitary and environmental standards and personnel training for the industry. Improvements in food production processes also date from this same period.

This rapid growth aroused international and national suspicion. In 1997, salmon producers in Maine, USA, accused their Chilean counterparts of dumping, which led to an extensive trial of Chilean salmon companies in that country and the application of additional tariff rates. The investigation concluded in 2003 with the Chilean industry completely cleared of the accusations (Aqua Chile, 2003). Along with the industry’s growth and development, at the end of the 1990s, criticism of the environmental and social impacts of the industry also grew strongly. “The industry’s response was to promote clean production agreements to organize and rationalize waste treatment, as well as to promote, together with the public sector, the creation of an Environmental Regulation for Aquaculture (RAMA). This regulation took charge of the main complaints against the industry, related to changes in the conditions in the seabed because of fish feeding processes, assuming its follow-up and monitoring, in order to avoid eutrophication7 of the waters” (Bustos, 2012). This regulation began to operate in 2001 and the environmental organizations valued its entry into force positively, although two criticisms were raised. First, it did not correctly regulate the necessary monitoring of impacts on the seabed over time and did not consider the impact of marine currents on the centers themselves and their capacity to disseminate or move pollutants over wide areas of maritime territory.

In 2007, the ISA (infectious salmon anemia) crisis arose and its effects lasted at least until 2010. The massive infection of farming centers by the virus caused a loss of almost 50% of jobs and a drop of at least 20% in exports. After the official declaration of the crisis, two positions emerged on how to solve it. On the one hand, the industry proposed a geographical solution, which consisted of moving the marine farming centers to the south of the country (Aysén and Magallanes), where the industry had little presence and the virus had not arrived. The second position came from the banking sector, which was concerned about the payment capacity of the debtors of this industrial sector and postulated the need for a profound restructuring of the industry in its productive and business practices. This second option, which would finally be implemented, was a clear signal for the industry to redefine its practices and standards to reinsert itself in global circuits