Aquaculturists arrived at Fundación Chinquihue, in the city of Puerto Montt, in order to learn first-hand the work that this entity carries out to promote value-adding activities in seafood products.
A group of twenty small-scale aquaculturists from the commune of Carahue, Araucanía region, participated in a technology internship at the facilities of Fundación Chinquihue in the regional capital of Los Lagos, Puerto Montt. The beneficiaries belong to the Río Imperial Aquaculturists Union from the locality of Nehuentúe.
The activity was coordinated by Otec Chinquihue and funded by the National Institute for the Sustainable Development of Artisanal Fishing and Small-Scale Aquaculture, INDESPA, through the "National Organizational Strengthening Competition".
The objective of the session was to strengthen the technical capacities of the beneficiaries in the cultivation of commercially important molluscs.
In this way, during the tour, the visitors got close to the work carried out by the foundation at its mollusc seed production center, as well as the value-adding activities carried out from its laboratory for developing value-added seafood products.
One of the participants in the tour was Cristian Leal, who currently presides the Imperial River Nehuentúe Aquaculture Union. The organization -he explains- also includes workers from Puerto Saavedra. The Carahue aquaculturist specified that most members are engaged in mussel farming, especially the cultivation of choro maltón.
Leal said that the aim of this activity was "to be able to acquire more tools to better develop our products (…). So far it is still a product that is sold in bulk, by kilo, retail or wholesale".
In the same line, he argued that "we are looking to add value to the product and, precisely, we are looking for a stage in which we can train in that direction." The union leader stated that after the visit to Fundación Chinquihue "a lot of ideas came out that we will start implementing. Some type of important improvements, some type of important measurement, to start quantifying with data, because up to now it is done in a way" very rustic and we hope to get the most out of this activity that we have done today.
