The organization wants a moratorium from the government on the country’s US$ 2.2 billion farmed salmon industry or else it will take action. The AGO has decided to upgrade its campaign against the expansion of the salmon industry in May by starting a global boycott of salmon produced in Chile.
The organization has called for President Michelle Bachelet to make good promise to stop awarding aquaculture concessions far large-scale farming until studies are conducted to find out the exact number of fish farming waters and how much ecosystems can handle. As per AGO intensive fish farming is creating tremendous amounts of organic pollution that is creating dead zones in the surrounding waters.
Besides, there is another blow to the Chilean Salmon industry as the Brazilian beef exporters have backed a ban on salmon from Chile because of concerns over the safety of the fish. The exporters’ association Abiec informed that it had backed the ministry of agriculture in its ban on the import of fruit from Chile because of a mite, so it also needed to take similar action against the threat from Chilean salmon.
Antonio Camardelli, the executive director of Abiec said that the Chilean aquaculture system not only does not declare that it uses astaxanthin to colour the salmon sold in Brazil. There were problems arises such as a virus, infectious anaemia, that is affecting fish farms in the country. The spread of the virus is also raising questions about the increasing use of antibiotics to treat the salmon.
