Cargill and EWOS have marked a significant milestone in addressing fish health and disease prevention with the inauguration of its new US$10.5 million Cargill Innovation Center.
Located in the Pacific coastal-town of Colaco, Chile, the Cargill Innovation Center is geared specifically to improve health and wellbeing for salmon. It will serve as a hub for Cargill experts who will focus on developing functional fish diets and studying diseases that affect farmed aquaculture salmon.
"Having our own fish health centre will accelerate our product development programmes, allowing us to quickly develop new customer solutions," said Einar Wathne, president, Cargill Aqua Nutrition.
"We will be able to dig much deeper into the primary diseases and combat the risks they create for salmon producers and also apply our learnings across multiple species of fish."
As part of their research, the experts will create tools and additional controls to fight the two major health challenges in the salmon industry. The first disease they will focus on is SRS, caused by a bacterium responsible for 79% of the mortality of salmon and the main reason for antibiotic use in Chile.
The second one is Caligidosis, caused by Caligus or "sea lice," a parasite that attaches to salmon skin, affecting its health.
Both these diseases have contributed to significant fish industry sector losses.
With the support of Corfo, a Chilean developmental agency, the innovation centre aims to conduct four to five times more studies than before, increasing the global capacity for fish health research by around 30%.
