Evolving through collaboration
The Pincoy Project is a five-year-old Chilean initiative, where seven companies work together to reduce antibiotic use in Atlantic salmon farming using a novel approach in the global aquaculture industry (or any industry). All the partners work together, collaborating to produce a farming strategy, which help to produce robust and healthy fish. The overriding goal is to reduce Chilean antibiotic use by 50% by sharing latest knowledge, experience and innovations.
In Chile Piscirickettsiosis (or SRS) is an endemic disease, which can be controlled only with antibiotics once the outbreaks have started. However, Pincoy focuses on a holistic prevention and control strategy of the disease, using genetically resistant fish to SRS, using optimal vaccination strategies, feeding the fish with functional and high-performance diets, ensuring good farming conditions, delivering good welfare to the fish and only performing appropriate and necessary handling, each of them are essential to tackle this disease.
The overriding goal is to reduce Chilean antibiotic use by 50% by sharing latest knowledge, experience and innovations.
A Pincoy farming site must comply with over 23 fish health requirements with minimum and optimal scenarios and also by complying thorough follow up on animal welfare standards. Since Pincoy 1, the requirements have evolved together with the new developments in salmon aquaculture and therefore improved, including the lessons learned in the way of reaching the goal. Recently Pincoy 2.0 farming sites were harvested and the productive and sanitary data is being analysed, in order to have objective information to use for the next stage. Currently two new sites are farming homozygous resistant salmon to SRS. This unique fish was developed for the project and is being tested on field. This new group comply with all the requirements mentioned but they also are the first group to be followed up on animal welfare during the freshwater stage.
In October 2020 the Best Practice Manual was launched on an open webinar, were Pincoy shared the work done in the past 5 years. Since then the Manual has been shared with the stakeholders. Currently the Manual is available upon request at the website www.proyectopincoy.com.
The Project is sharing industry, project facts and news through LinkedIn. Additionally, it continues to be the subject of media features and interviews, and is featured in key industry seminars.
