Over the next five years, six salmon farmers plan to invest a total of USD 260 million (EUR 226 million) in Chile’s Magallanes region, in the far south region of Patagonia which is seeing heightened interest from the industry to produce Atlantic salmon.
According to a report in Radio Polar, the initiatives are being led by Australis, Cermaq, Nova Austral, and Salmones Magallanes, with BluRiver and Multiexport arriving this year. These six companies with operations in the region have a total of 130 concessions, with a total surface production area of 1,900 hectares. A total of 130 concession licenses have been granted for this region.
The report said that together salmon exports from the region will reach USD 480 million (EUR 418 million), and will also include some amount of trout in addition to the Atlantic salmon.
Most of the investment will be destined to land operations, including new processing plants.
These developments have increased the labor force of the aquaculture industry in the Magallanes, with more than 5,000 posts associated with the salmon farmers. Of this amount, around 3,100 are direct positions while another 2,000 are with service providers like boat crew, truckers, and scuba divers, among others.
The report said that as their presence has increased, the salmon industry has also ramped up its community efforts and worked with local educational institutions to create specialized aquaculture programs to recruit new workers for the industry. In 2018, the region produced around 87,000 metric tons of salmon, the report added.
Geographically these company’s projects are spread across several different parts of the region. Nova Austral has a fattening plant in Capitàn Aracena, but most of its labor force is at its Porvenir located processing plant. But Australis and Salmones Magallanes are based primarily in Puerto Natales.
