Abstract
Since the mid-1980s, the Chilean salmon industry has steadily increased its annual production, propelled by a rapidly growing world demand for seafood (Montero 2004). The rapid expansion in production volume came hand in hand with the development of new institutions and new forms of social interaction among industry associations, universities, research institutions and other bodies. However, we can also observe that even at this incipient stage, there were already some imbalances in the co-evolutionary process. Chile achieved a successful ‘catch up’ in terms of nearing the production capacity of Norway (the largest exporter of salmon in the world) at the beginning of the first decade of the 2000s. However, this catch up was not comprehensive in all areas, particularly when we consider the aspects of innovation, development of local technological capabilities, sustainable production via monitoring of sanitation and environmental conditions, and overall institutions in general. Thus the process of industrial growth might not have been as successful as first impressions would suggest.
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Notes
- 1.
Topics covered in the previous chapter.
- 2.
Direct employment is employment generated directly by the industry. Indirect employment is employment generated by supporting or related industries.
- 3.
There are some important players in these regions. In Valdivia (capital of Los Rios, 14th region), there is an important producer of wellboats, used to transport live fish. In the Bio-Bio region (the 8th region) there is a salmon food plant (Ewos, the global fish feed firm).
- 4.
The freshwater phase produces smolt , the fry; the seawater phase fattens the fry to mature salmon; and the processing phase slaughters and processes the salmon.
- 5.
The industrial structure has gone through various changes since then. This is just to illustrate how complex and diverse the types of firms were at one point in time.
- 6.
Of course, not all of these actors were new in the salmon industry. In fact, various active salmon farms originated from extractive fishery, such as Camanchaca (which commenced salmon farming in 1987), Pesquera Friosur (Salmones Friosur 1987). Of foreign firms, Cermaq of Norway has a seafood business, and so has Nihonsuisan (Salmones Antartica 1986), with other extractive fishery activities in Chile (Endepes). Invertec, owned by a family of investors (the Montenari family), is run by a holding firm with investments in agribusiness and real-estate. However, these firms were in a minority in the group of large exporters compared to the recent trends (based on Iizuka 2007).
- 7.
It is worth noting that the Universidad Austral de Valdivia in Chile is possibly the only university with a course in naval engineering is. This seems to show a connection between the requirements of the ASENAV and the university.
- 8.
At this stage, the production size was very small and hence the only major markets were Japan and the USA until 1989.
- 9.
There are two types of ‘conversion rates’ in salmon feed. One is the ‘biological factor conversion rate’, which measures the amount of feed for 1 kg of salmon. The other is the ‘economic factor conversion rate’, which is the conversion rate from 1 kg of feed to 1 kg of salmon adjusting for other economic factors. Usually the economic factor conversion rate is lower than the biological rate.
- 10.
This involves knowing crucial firm-level secrets about fish density per m2, feeding times and production schedule, because each of these variables determine the frequency of net cleaning.
- 11.
The efforts made by Salmocoop can be seen in Fig. 4.8, which shows diversification of markets. The following new markets were opened: in the Latin American region: Argentina (1991), Mexico (1992), Venezuela (1995), Colombia (1996); in the Asian region, Taiwan (1994), Thailand (1994), Singapore (1995), China (1997) (Iizuka 2007).
- 12.
Vera Bahamonde (2010) explains that this manual was not respected by many of the member companies of SalmonChile. In general, this entity did not achieve adequate enforcement of its provisions, which was supposed to come from a common understanding by the vast majority of member companies. At the same time, this was inevitable because SalmonChile, as an industrial association, does not have the legal authority to intervene in the management strategy of member firms.
- 13.
The typical modus operandi of competitive grant programs is as follows: an institution (e.g. a private company, university, research institute etc.) presents a research or innovation project in a given program (e.g. FONDECYT). Later, the organization must wait a certain time, perhaps 6 months with FONDECYT, to see if its project is approved or not. If it is approved, the program usually funds a certain percentage of the project, while the accepted institution, probably with the help of a third organization, puts up the remainder of the money.
- 14.
We can also use the argument that many OECD countries spend around 2 % of GDP on innovation with substantial part financed by the private sector.
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Iizuka, M., Roje, P., Vera, V. (2016). The Development of Salmon Aquaculture in Chile into an Internationally Competitive Industry: 1985–2007. In: Hosono, A., Iizuka, M., Katz, J. (eds) Chile’s Salmon Industry. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55766-1_4
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