Chile’s salmon industry will invest a combined $58 million to reduce antibiotics usage by half in the next two years, the companies said.
A number of feed and pharmaceutical companies including Skretting, Pharmaq, AquaGen, Centrovet, Cermaq and Blumar launched the Pincoy salmon industry initiative Aug. 1 to cut antibiotics usage, newspaper El Mercurio reported. Industry association SalmonChile and fisheries inspectorate also backed the initiative.
Through a combination of different methods the industry is looking to cut antibiotics usage in half by 2018. The antibiotics are currently being used to tackle salmonid rickettsial septicemia that is costing the industry more than $700m a year, or $0.07 for every kilogram of salmon farmed.
“The principal objective of Pincoy is to reduce the amount of antibiotics utilized by the Chilean salmon industry, and we hope that in 2018 that figures can we what it is now,” Ronald Barlow, general manager of Skretting Chile said in a statement.
The project will not just seek to improve fish health but also boost industry productivity levels as well.
Pincoy will be key in the publication of results related to industry performance, said Alfredo di Tello, head of Intesal, the technological arm of SalmonChile.