April 15, 2008

Fishery group threatens international boycott of Chilean salmon
 

An international boycott of Chilean-raised salmon will be organised if the government fail to announce a moratorium on Chile's US$2.2 billion farmed salmon industry, according to Aysen's Association of Artisan Fishing Organisations (AGOPA).

This is not the first boycott warning issued by the Region XI-based local fishermen association. AGOPA on March 7 has campaigned for a moratorium on the expansion of the salmon industry and has said that the campaign will transform into an international boycott on May 8 if Chilean president Michelle Bachelet failed to fulfil her January 2006 promise to "cease handing out aquaculture concessions for large-scale farming until studies are conducted to determine exactly how much fish farming the waters and ecosystems can handle".

The AGO has criticised the Chilean salmon industry of infringing on workers' rights and being environmentally damaging due to water pollution caused by fish faeces and excess feed. The Chilean salmon industry has also been accused of a lack of regulation, which leads to salmon companies using excessive levels of antibiotics on their farmed salmon.

The AGO, which groups together 16 local fishermen groups, is especially concerned about the salmon industry's expansion into the clean the disease-free waters of Region XI, an area known as Aysen.

A story entitled "Salmon Virus Indicts Chile's Fishing Methods" was published in the New York Times on March 27. The article highlighted Chile's struggles with the Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) and raised questions about Chile's aquaculture practises, suggesting that Chilean producers use excessive quantities of antibiotics and that the South American country has a lack of sanitary control.

Safeway, a major US food retailer, announced a cutback of Chilean salmon imports just days after the article. Chile exports about US$700 million worth of salmon annually to the US, and while Safeway accounts for only US$12 million, but there is the risk of setting a costly example, especially if other US retail giants decide to follow suit.

The article is fully backed by AGO, but SalmonChile, the industry's private producers association and the Chilean government thinks very differently, having gone the other way as they consider the article to be slanderous and have defended the industry's practises.

In the meantime, the government authorities have showed no signs that they plan to heed the international boycott threat, even though Chile's principal local fishermen organisation - the influential National Confederation of Chilean Artisan Fishermen (CONAPACH) had also called for a moratorium on the salmon industry.