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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

Should we farm octopus?

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The Food Chain: Should we farm octopus?

Magazines & Reviews

11/05/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Should we farm octopus?

We examine plans to open the world’s first octopus farm.

The world’s first octopus farm is being planned by a Spanish seafood multinational. 

The intelligent creatures are difficult to rear in captivity, but numerous companies around the world have been trying and Nueva Pescanova has announced it’s close to making an octopus farm a reality. 

Scientists and animal welfare groups have objected to the plans. 

Nueva Pescanova says the company’s priority is to guarantee animal welfare by applying to the cultivation process the conditions of the species in the wild.   

Ruth Alexander finds out more about both sides of the debate with the BBC’s Environment and Rural Affairs correspondent, Claire Marshall, who has been closely following the story from the beginning.  

She speaks to Dr Heather Browning, Lecturer in Philosophy at Southampton University in the UK and former zoo-keeper, about the capacity of octopuses to experience feelings; and how we form our opinions about what we should and shouldn’t farm. 

And she finds out why octopus is central to Japanese cuisine with food writer and host of Japan Eats! podcast, Akiko Katayama. 

Presented by Ruth Alexander. 

Produced by Beatrice Pickup. 

(Image: an octopus with curling tentacles. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)

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