Meet Local Author Richard Schweid

Life on the Octopus Farm
The Ethics and Future of Growing the World’s Most Intelligent Invertebrate
by Richard Schweid
186 pp., notes, index
ISBN 978-1-4696-9687-4 $99.00 cloth; ISBN 978-1-4696-9688-1 $24.95 paper
Publication date: August 11, 2026
For more information: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469696881/life-on-the-octopus-farm/

——

Join us on Saturday, September 12th at 6:00 p.m. for a reading and book signing with Richard Schweid, author of Life on the Octopus Farm.

Life on the Octopus Farm: The Ethics and Future of Growing the World’s Most Intelligent Invertebrate
by Richard Schweid

In 2021, the London School of Economics found that octopuses are sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain, distress, and happiness, and that high-welfare farming of them would therefore be impossible. But the enormous international demand for octopus meat continues to grow even as wild octopus populations decline, prompting a race to bring the first farm-raised product to market. At the same time, firestorms of protest in Europe and the United States over the ethics of farming such an intelligent creature are pressuring lawmakers to ban the practice altogether.

After working at one of the world’s first octopus farms, on the Yucatán Peninsula, award-winning journalist Richard Schweid embarked on a global adventure to explore the ethics and future of octopus aquaculture. He traveled to octopus-farming sites in Mexico, Spain, and Japan where he met people on both sides of the ethical debate: marine biologists, businesspeople, restaurateurs, animal rights advocates, octopus farmers, and everyday fishermen whose livelihoods depend on wild octopus. In this vibrant account of his experiences, Schweid also engages pressing related issues: environmental impact; the need for sustainable farming opportunities in under-resourced communities; and how global desires for specific foods place pressure on local populations. Ultimately, the appetite for octopus demonstrates the conundrums of our interconnected world—across countries, through oceans, and via the food we consume.

Richard Schweid is a veteran journalist with decades of experience writing on science, politics, natural history and culture for outlets including The Tennessean, Slate, Popular Science, and Politico. Based in Barcelona and Rhode Island, Schweid is the author of a dozen books including Consider the Eel, The Cockroach Papers: A Compendium of History and Lore, and Invisible Nation: Homeless Families in America.