The aquaculture industry in Chile harvested around 768,000 metric tons (MT) of seafood in the first 10 months of 2016, a decrease of almost 16 percent, finds the latest figures from the country’s Undersecretariat for Fisheries and Aquaculture (SUBPESCA).
Of this total, some 517,000 MT of fish was harvested, a decline of 20.1 percent year-on-year. This included 417,000 MT of Atlantic salmon (down 15.3 percent), 58,000 MT of rainbow trout (down 30.1 percent) and 41,700 MT of Pacific salmon (down 43.9 percent).
According to SUBPESCA, the decline in Pacific salmon was linked to changes in regulations, environmental requirements and the market for the fish, while the rainbow trout volume fell as a result in the preference for farming Atlantic salmon.
However, egg production as of October 2016 was 11 percent higher than in the same month of 2015 at 552 million units. Of this total, Atlantic salmon accounted for 62 percent, Pacific salmon was 23 percent and rainbow trout was 16 percent.
The industry also harvested 242,000 MT of farmed mollusks in the first 10 months of last year, down 4.7 percent year-on-year. Of this total, mussels represented 237,300 MT (down 4.4 percent) and the northern scallop harvest amounted to 2,900 MT (up 7.5 percent).
SUBPESCA also reported that the algae harvest over the aforementioned 10-month period amounted to 9,800 MT, down around 1 percent year-on-year.
