Abstract

The mollusks farming is the second important aquaculture activity in production in Chile, although it is not an important foreign exchange source in comparison to salmon farming, it is an important economic activity at local scale for fishing villages, mainly in the South of Chile, and many of the production is destined to local consumption, and an important fraction is destined to exportation. The present study does a revision of mollusks farming in Chile. The mollusks culture began at least 150 years with intents for culture local oysters (Ostrea chilensis) and Chilean mussels (Mytilus chilensis) mainly in Southern Chile, and in the last six decades, increased the experimental and low scale industrial scale farming in the north of Chile for local oysters (Ostrea chilensis), giant mussels (Choromytilus chorus), Northern Chilean scallop (Argopecten purpuratus) and ribbon mussel (Aulacomya ater) as native species, and also were introduced species such as Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) and Abalones (Haliotis discus hanai and H. rufescens), nevertheless the culture of these last species are regulated because these are introduced species that can have effects on ecosystems. The main cultured species is M. chilensis with 96.6 %, followed by A. purpuratus with 1.9 %, and the other species have the 1.5 % included other species. The main zone with mollusks culture is in inner seas in Southern Chile

Keywords: Aquaculture, bivalve farming, mussel farming, Chile