Like so many capitalistic ventures in today’s society, profits are put ahead of anything else.
Whether it’s good for the Earth, animals, people, or customers comes secondary… if at all.
It’s a practice that some are accusing Spanish company Nueva Pescanova of with their plans to open the first commercial octopus farm.
Activists are criticizing the project because of the octopus’s high intelligence and ability to feel emotions.
“Critics find the prospect of cultivating such sentient animals for food barbaric.”
“They point out that research shows the animals are highly intelligent, exhibiting complex behaviors incompatible with the enclosed environments of aquaculture,” Tik Root wrote in a piece for TIME.
But Roberto Romero, aquaculture director at Nueva Pescanova, sees the project as “a global milestone.”
The company is spending $74 million on the project which is still pending environmental approval.
They are also companies in Mexico and Japan working on similar endeavors for industrial-scale octopus breeding.
The farm intends to produce 3,000 tonnes per year by 2026 and will create hundreds of jobs on Gran Canaria island.
The global octopus trade grew between 2010 and 2019 to $2.72 billion from $1.30 billion.
The amount harvested only grew 9 percent to 380,000 tonnes.
Previous octopus farming efforts were thwarted by high mortality rates.
Efforts to breed wild-caught octopuses resulted in aggression, cannibalism, and self-mutilation.
But Nueva Pescanova claims to have solved this problem.
“We have not found cannibalistic behavior in any of our cultures,” David Chavarrias, the centre’s director, told Reuters.
Chavarrias said the company has optimized its tanks to prevent aggression and has successfully bred five generations in captivity.
But not everyone is buying that.
Researchers from the London School of Economics reviewed 300 scientific studies and determined that octopuses were sentient beings that could not only sense distress but could also be happy.
They say that this would make high-welfare farming impossible.
“Octopuses are extremely intelligent and extremely curious. And it’s well known they are not happy in conditions of captivity,” WWF’s head of fisheries in Spain Raul Garcia said.
Octopuses are usually found living in solitary conditions on the sea bed.
Mimicking this natural habitat would likely not be cost-effective.
Though Nueva Pescanova has not shared the details about the size and density of their tanks, they say that the well-being of their octopus is constantly being monitored.
Chavarrias argues that there is insufficient research to conclude that octopuses are intelligent beings.
“We like to say that more than an intelligent animal, it is a responsive animal,” he said “It has a certain capacity for resolve when faced with survival challenges.”
The demand for octopus remains high and some say natural fishing grounds are said to be dwindling.
“If we want to continue consuming octopus we have to look for an alternative … because the fisheries have already reached their limit,” Eduardo Almansa, a scientist at Spain’s Oceanography Institute, which developed the technology used by Nueva Pescanova, said.
Activists say the solution is far more simpler than that.
Just stop eating octopus.
Learn more about the fight against octopus farming in the video below.
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