Puerto Montt, Chile-based salmon farmer Cultivos Yadran is looking to expand operations at two of its farms in southern Aysén Region, with each project costing USD 5 million (EUR 4.2 million), for a total investment of USD 10 million (EUR 8.4 million), according to separate documents submitted by the company to the Chilean government’s environmental impact assessment system (SEIA).
The first project request is to increase the operations area to 29 hectares, from the current permitted size of six hectares, at its farming center in the Canal Bynon Sector – located south of Islas Benjamín, in the Cisnes district of Aysén Province. The second asks for an expansion from six hectares to 18.75 hectares at another of the company’s farms in the Canal Bynon Sector, but located northwest of Isla Jorge.
Other than location and the difference in area, the two projects call for the same structure. Both proposed plans outline two configurations for floating cages, with the first module corresponding to 46 floats measuring 30 meters in diameter and the second module comprised of 28 floats measuring 40 meters in diameter. Yadran said it would maintain the maximum authorized biomass of 4,900 metric tons per year, coming from smolts provided by the company's farms or from authorized third parties, with an estimated production cycle of 18 months. Harvesting is to be done via wellboats when the fish reach an average weight of 4.5 kilograms.
Facilities are to include an office, warehouses, a potable water system, a silage platform, a wastewater treatment plant, and an electric generator.
Cultivos Yadran said it will maintain adequate equipment at the two centers to guarantee operational efficiency and environmental stewardship, employing computer systems for automatic feeding at all its cultivation units, together with the implementation of underwater cameras to control food delivery and minimize food loss.
The salmon farmer has recently faced bouts with infectious salmon anemia (ISA) in the Aysén Region. In January, Chile’s national fisheries and aquaculture service, Sernapesca, confirmed positive diagnostic tests for Yadran’s Melchor 716 center, in the Norte area. This followed a November 2020 Sernapesca declaration of Yadran’s Melchor 719 cultivation center as an ISA-infected zone, with the harvesting of 108,000 specimen and the area designated as a surveillance zone for at least two years.
The company recorded harvests of 28,053 metric tons (MT) of salmon in 2019, of which 25,813 MT were exported. It aims to produce 30,000 MT this year.
Photo courtesy of Cultivos Yadran
