Chile’s salmon farming industry used 238 metric tons (MT) of antimicrobials to treat its fish during the first half of 2022, over 98 percent of which was used in seawater salmonid grow-out centers, according to the latest antimicrobial use report from Sernapesca, Chile's aquaculture authority.
While the report did not provide comparable figures from the same period of 2021, according to the Chilean Salmon Council, levels were similar to those registered during the first six months of 2021. The council’s executive director, Joanna Davidovich, said that antimicrobial medication was needed to protect animal health.
“Salmon are living beings and their health and well-being must be protected. Therefore, companies continue to work intensively on different strategies to optimize the use of antibiotics with a long-term perspective and we hope that this work will be reflected in the figures going forward,” she said.
Antibiotics are only used for diseases and with veterinary prescription in the appropriate doses in a process authorized by the country’s agricultural and livestock service SAG, following Sernapesca guidelines, Davidovich said, and no antibiotics are administered for a certain time before harvesting so that the fish can eliminate the medication from their systems before being sold for consumption.
Sernapesca reported that treatments for piscirickettsiosis (SRS) made up 94.8 percent of the use of antimicrobials, followed by renibacteriosis (BKD) at 4.1 percent and tenacibaculosis at 1.1 percent. Of the total use, 52.7 percent of the antimicrobials used were administered in Chile's Los Lagos region, while 46.3 percent were administered in the Aysén region.
During the first half of the year, 92 percent of the antimicrobials were used in the farming of Atlantic salmon, 5.3 percent in coho salmon, and 2.7 percent in rainbow trout.
For the full year 2021, Chile’s salmon farmers used 463 MT of antimicrobials to harvest 985,958 MT of biomass, giving an antibiotic consumption index – with which Sernapesca measures the amount of antimicrobials used in comparison to the total harvest – of 0.047. That was up from 0.035 from the previous year.
The Chilean Salmon Council said salmon companies are working to increase the number of farming centers that obtain Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification, which establishes treatment limits for fish, while also adhering to the antimicrobials susceptibility surveillance program led by Sernapesca. The industry is also working with the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and with a program led by CERES, a consultancy specialized in health issues.
Sernapesca called on salmon farmers to voluntarily join the Program for the Optimized Use of Antimicrobials in Salmon Farming, dubbed PROA/Salmon – a government initiative that seeks to maintain a progressive decrease in the use of these treatments in Chile’s salmon production. According to Sernapesca figures, of those farming operations already in the PROA-Salmon program, 61 percent are using no antimicrobials and the remaining 31 percent are optimizing its use.
Chile’s largest farmer, AquaChile, leads the bunch with 16 centers certified under PROA-Salmon, followed by Blumar with 12 centers certified, Cermaq with nine, Caleta Bay with eight, Cooke Aquaculture with seven, Salmones de Chile with seven, Multiexport with four, Salmones Austral with three, Nova Austral with three, and Salmones Camanchaca with two.
Photo courtesy of Sernapesca
