Richard Schweid @ Southern Festival of Books

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/

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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.