Viewpoint: Why the ethics of octopus farming are so troubling

Octopus is a popular ingredient in many cuisines, with some 420,000 metric tons of this mollusc being caught worldwide each year. The rising global popularity of octopus has been attributed to the increasingly adventurous tastes of younger consumers, its nutritional benefits and the decline of traditional fish stocks such as cod. This helps explain why the food processing corporation, Nueva Pescanova, aims to build the world's first indoor octopus farm in Gran Canaria: a thousand-tank facility for producing 3,000 tons of octopus a year.