Is Argentina Really Changing? Ask Its Salmon

[MilHojas]

Is Argentina Really Changing? Ask Its Salmon

Tierra del Fuego isn’t the most obvious place to look for clues about how rapidly Argentina is changing. Yet the country’s southernmost and least populated province has just pulled off a sharp policy U-turn that hints at a much broader national shift.

Archived version

 

[Ries]

Being born and raised in the Pacific North West, I am extremely skeptical. Chilean farmed salmon is tasteless, colorless, and full of chemicals. I wont eat it.
Patagonian Trucha, on the other hand, is delicious.
In the PNW, I get wild alaskan salmon, dressed and flash frozen on the boat, for similar or less than the crappy Chilean farmed stuff costs here. We usually buy a box of cleaned half salmon filets, about 2 dozen of them, each year, direct from a fisherman.
But most argentines only want salmon, cooked, on their philadelphia cream cheese laden "sushi", so I see this as mostly a product for export.

 

[FrankPintor]

Being born and raised in the Pacific North West, I am extremely skeptical. Chilean farmed salmon is tasteless, colorless, and full of chemicals. I wont eat it.
Patagonian Trucha, on the other hand, is delicious.
In the PNW, I get wild alaskan salmon, dressed and flash frozen on the boat, for similar or less than the crappy Chilean farmed stuff costs here. We usually buy a box of cleaned half salmon filets, about 2 dozen of them, each year, direct from a fisherman.
But most argentines only want salmon, cooked, on their philadelphia cream cheese laden "sushi", so I see this as mostly a product for export.

I don't think it's about the fish, it's just the fish (*) metaphor is being asked to do a lot of work to bolster this Bloomberg hack's agenda, which he supports by facile observations like "record oil production" from Vaca Muerte (err... Vaca Muerte production is growing, every year is going to be a record, duh), and "deal-making has surged" (err... foreign companies have left. As someone here on the forum has pointed out, this is not necessarily negative, but jumping up and down to celebrate the departure of foreign companies is a bit silly, to say the least). As for his self-referential claim that CABA is so "much cheaper in dollar terms than a year ago", I'll go out on a limb and say he was never here.

So much for that. A bit more depth and honesty would have been welcome, but I guess Bloomberg isn't going to deliver.

(*) About the fish... Chile has a huge coastline with very many bays, islands, and fjord-type inlets where salmon farming can be and has been established for a long time. Argentinian water isn't any cleaner, the logistics aren't any easier, and the relatively short suitable coastline isn't going to make much impact in the market dominated by Chile. It's an expensive, high-end product, so unless Argentina adds some extra "cachet", maybe like smoking, it's really going to be a niche. Argentinians don't eat much fish anyway. Just my opinion, I would be interested to know @Rich One 's take on this.

 

[Ries]

I would agree with you-
A- there is no actual need for this, its a libertarian revoking of "green" regulation to benefit imaginary "investors", and probably wont be much of an industry.
B- Argentines dont eat much fish. My wife once met a guy who was an argentine wholesale scallop broker- he said he helped export almost the entire Argentine catch, every year, as there was virtually no domestic market.
Although, last week, we had some excellent argentine scallops at Picaron.

 

[SlowWalker]

Its nice to be idealistic, but its needs to be practical otherwise you end up in a situation with no growth, no jobs, and a stagnant or shrinking economy, which Argentina has suffered from.

Chile uses he prohibited method, and sells $6B a year worth of exports, some of which is coming to Argentina.
So Argentina not fishing isn't stopping this from happening but instead is losing out on an export.

It is not important if there is a domestic market or not, Argentina exports agriculture, metals, etc.

If they want to protect it from over fishing they can implement quotas similar to other fishing jurisdictions, but at least this allows for an industry to succeed. Especially in an a remote area.

As the price of beef increases and everything else, seafood may have a growing future in the country.

 

[Ries]

this is not about fishing.
its about fish farming.
Argentina already exports a lot of fish and seafood.
but its real, wild fish and seafood.
Farmed salmon is an inferior product.
And the diseased and weakend farmed fish can actually damage the existing profitable wild fish populations and catches.
In my area of the US, we have had a lot of problems with fish farms, and Washington, California, and Alaska have all effectively banned them.

With Washington state moving to ban open-net fish farms, B.C. becomes an outlier on the west coast

Advocates say the move puts pressure on Canada’s fish farming industry as First Nations react to what some consider overreach from the federal government

www.theglobeandmail.com

I can see the island (Cypress) where the quarter million fish escaped from my farm in Washington.
I know a lot of commercial fisherman, packing plants, and retailers whose businesses and jobs were endangered by that particular failure, and the economy is damaged by cheap and quick fish farming, not improved by it.

 

[SlowWalker]

Farmed fish may be inferior, but there is still a substantial market for it.

The issue that took place in your article was that Atlantic Salmon was being farmed in BC and the incident released 250,000 fish which results in breeding with Wild Pacific Salmon. Mixed breeding threatens the Wild Pacific gene pool from continuing.

If they are using the natural species of Salmon in the area, then I think its more just the typical farmed fishing risks they are worried about in the original area feeding the Beagle Channel.

The law passed was not a repeal of the previous law but an amendment to it. It provides permission for farm fishing after environmental assessments are completed, and not in all areas including Beagle Channel, and its feed network. It will also create an oversight organization.

It isn't a straight green lighting of projects, but it is opening the ability to do so if found to be done with acceptable impact in less sensitive waters/marine life environments.

After four-year ban, Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego approves salmon farming again

 

[Rich One]

(*) About the fish... Chile has a huge coastline with very many bays, islands, and fjord-type inlets where salmon farming can be and has been established for a long time. Argentinian water isn't any cleaner, the logistics aren't any easier, and the relatively short suitable coastline isn't going to make much impact in the market dominated by Chile. It's an expensive, high-end product, so unless Argentina adds some extra "cachet", maybe like smoking, it's really going to be a niche. Argentinians don't eat much fish anyway. Just my opinion, I would be interested to know @Rich One 's take on this.

Chile is the 2nd. world exporter of Salmon with US$ 6 billion of business . Many of the farmed salmon producers in Chile are owned or partly owned by Norwegian producers, they provide the latest technology. In the past 30 years or so, a small percentage of farmed fish producers in Chile had issues with antibiotics contents. The issues were resolved long ago. Chile may become the world top exporter. The flavor depends very much on what one is used to.

Some restos in Beverly Hills had a standard in the Menu "Norwegian smoked Salmon". They started buying Chilean Smoked Salmon, but never changed the menu. Afraid it wouldn't sell as well.

 

[QuilmesSlo]

I have to admit I prefer farmed, I find it fresher. I've always assumed this is because it is easier to manage supply chain with anticipated culling amounts and dates.

 

[FrankPintor]

What are the logistics of getting something (anything) out of the Beagle Channel? I've seen the articulated trucks loaded with live salmon (they have portholes to see inside) on the dock in Niebla, on the coast near Valdivia, in Chile, having taken the ferry across the bay from Corral where the farms are located going south along the coast. From there, it's about 100km to Ruta 5 (Panamerican Highway) and then maybe an hour to the major port of Puerto Montt where processing for export will take place.

Is it even possible to compete with that supply chain?