The Race to Farm Octopus Is a Contentious One

Octopus could be poised to join salmon and shrimp on the list of farmed seafood—if scientists, corporations, and critics can agree it should. In Spain's Vigo Bay, a little-known experiment has quietly been running for decades: a raft owned by veteran fisherman Carlos Veiga houses pens of common octopuses that are captured young, fattened on food waste and specialized feed, then sold at auction. That small-scale setup fed into a major scientific milestone in 2019, writes Clint Rainey in a lengthy piece for Fast Company, when Spanish seafood giant Nueva Pescanova announced it had "successfully closed the octopus reproduction cycle in aquaculture."

Using a lab-bred pair nicknamed Goliath and Lourditas, researchers led by marine biologist Ricardo Tur produced multiple generations that survived at far higher rates than in the wild—"at best, one in every 1 million Octopus vulgaris eggs reaches maturity"—and with a feed conversion ratio of 1.4 pounds of food per pound gained, rivaling that of farmed salmon, which at 0.5 to 1.3 pounds of food per pound gained makes it "one of the planet's most sustainable animal proteins." But an octopus can reach maturity in just nine months, compared to three years for farmed salmon. The commercial implications are big.

Analysts estimate that scaling up octopus farming could add at least 20,000 tons a year by the late 2030s—roughly Europe's recent annual catch—and support a new global value chain worth up to $1 billion. But octopus aquaculture has run into a wall of opposition, thanks in part to books like The Soul of an Octopus and Netflix's My Octopus Teacher. The late Jane Goodall backed petitions; protesters staged "octopus slavery" demonstrations; and nearly 100 experts recently urged Congress to ban octopus farming in US waters. A rival group of 118 cephalopod specialists has pushed back, noting that pigs and cows are also sentient yet farmed.

Caught between rising demand and rising outrage, Nueva Pescanova never broke ground on its planned Canary Islands facility and has since hit financial trouble. But the race hasn't stopped, though the industry "has clammed up" about its plans and progress. As Rainey writes, "If it can be done, octopus would be the first new farmed animal protein to hit the market in half a century—since salmon was first commercially raised in the 1970s—capping off a marathon quest unlike any in modern aquaculture." (Read the full story here.)