Wild populations are declining due to illegal fishing, while Spain is investing, together with the EU, in a breeding facility in the Canary Islands. But to obtain 3,000 tons of usable meat, up to 28,000 tons of other species would have to be used to produce feeds.
by Francesco De Augustinis
Illegal fishing, overfishing, and—in the background—the potential emergence of a new system of intensive farming: this is how European Mediterranean countries are responding to a rapidly growing demand for octopus meat in recent years, raising questions about the sustainability of this production.
“There has been an increase in demand for octopus worldwide over the past five years,” Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italy, told us. “In Milan, you go to any bar and find octopus. So the question arises: where does this octopus come from?”
Morello has just returned to Italy after taking part in a three-month operation in the sea between Greece and Turkey, in collaboration with Greek authorities, to locate and remove illegal octopus traps from the sea. “We found 34,576 illegal octopus traps under the waters of these lagoons,” says Morello, who claims this could be the “largest seizure ever documented in the Mediterranean” with “thousands of females with eggs released into the sea.”
Octopus traps are small plastic tubes, designed to provide the animals with an ideal hiding place to lay their eggs. They are typically left a few miles from the coast by small vessels, which therefore lack geolocation systems, which are mandatory only for larger fishing vessels. Regulations in Italy and Greece allow the use of these devices, but in limited numbers (1,200 and 1,500 respectively for each “license”), while Sea Shepherd has discovered tens of thousands of “pirate” traps.
The operation in Greece follows similar activity carried out by the organization in Italy, off the coast of Tuscany, where Sea Shepherd worked with the Guardia di Finanza to confiscate over 12,000 illegal traps in a year.
“We’re talking about illegal, unrecognized fishing,” says Morello, who estimates a turnover for Italy of 2 million euros a year from illegal catches, reaching both the Italian and foreign markets.
Overfishing and dependence on foreign countries
The Mediterranean is one of the main areas for octopus fishing, usually done by trawling. In recent years, the region has seen a decline in catches, which has led to price spikes amid ever-increasing demand for octopus meat, both in European countries (led by Italy) and non-EU countries (Japan, South Korea, and increasingly the United States).
Although the decline is likely linked to several factors, such as the reduction of European fleets and climate change, in Italy fishermen point the finger at illegal fishing. “There are boats that launch tubes [for octopuses] that stay on the seabed for 365 days,” Massimo Alla, captain of a trawling vessel off the coast of Anzio, told Corriere della Sera. “A lookout came once and removed I don’t know how many tubes. The next day they were back there.”
Italy is the leading consumer of octopus in Europe, consuming over 60,000 tons annually. Less than 10 percent of this consumption is domestically caught, while the vast majority is imported—so much so that, according to a Eumofa report, even “at the retail counter, fresh octopus from Italy and thawed imported octopus can be found.”
The main suppliers of frozen octopus to Italy are Morocco (14.8 thousand tons in 2024), Spain (10.7 thousand tons), and Indonesia (4.5 thousand tons – Eurostat data).
New factory farms at sea
Precisely in light of growing demand and rising prices, the idea of starting an octopus farming system was born in Spain a few years ago. “The demand has been growing, and the wild populations cannot support that demand,” says Elena Lara, researcher and aquatic animal coordinator for the NGO Compassion in World Farming. “So Spain thought it was a good idea to try farming them, because it could get a lot of profits.”
An octopus farm project in Spain—the first of its kind in the world—could be launched in the Canary Islands, initiated by the company Nueva Pescanova, which operates in the frozen food sector in Italy, with an initial capacity of 3,000 tons per year. The project is currently stalled due to objections raised by the Canary Islands’ local government to the environmental impact plan submitted by the company.
In October, Compassion in World Farming published a report highlighting the environmental and social impact of a hypothetical octopus farm, similar to that of other carnivorous species such as salmon, sea bass, sea bream, shrimp, trout, and tuna, due to their reliance on huge quantities of wild fish caught elsewhere in the world and used to produce feed.
In Europe, “most farmed fish species are carnivorous,” says Lara. “This is an issue that has been debated for years, as we shouldn’t farm these species due to their reliance on wild fish.”
According to the NGO’s estimates, to produce 3,000 tons of octopus meat per year, the company would need to farm 1 million octopus and use up to 28,000 tons of wild fish per year for feed. These numbers are expected to grow exponentially as production expands in the coming years.
“We’re already in a delicate situation, with overexploited fish stocks,” Lara said. “The worst thing that can happen is that we continue to introduce new farmed species, which will demand even more wild fish.”
In recent years, several international campaigns have opposed the prospect of farming octopuses, considered particularly sentient and intelligent animals. In the United States, this movement has led California and Washington state to ban this type of farming—including the import of farmed meat.
According to previous research by Compassion in World Farming, on the other hand, the Spanish project enjoys public funding from Spain and the European Union (€9.7 million by 2024), and other public funds have supported similar research projects in Chile, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. “This is moving forward because Spain is interested in moving forward, having invested a lot of public money,” Lara comments. “Obviously, the private sector is also involved, and they have a vested interest because there’s so much demand.”
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