Chile Salmon Farmers Want Government Intervention to End the Boom-to-Bust Cycle
- Producers asking govt to shrink the industry as losses build
- High volume is pushing up the cost of disease prevention
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Faced with mounting losses, Chilean salmon farmers are doing something that commodity producers rarely do -- asking for the government’s help to downsize.
The industry, which was on its way to challenging Norway as the top producer before a virus ravaged stocks in 2008, is producing too much again, said Victor Hugo Puchi, who controls the largest local producer and sits on the board of the industry association. With margins eroded by low prices and intensive farming that’s pushing up the cost of disease prevention, authorities need to “limit individual liberties,” he said.