Ammonnews : Too smart to eat .. why an octopus is difficult to farm

Nueva Pescanova shelved its plans for what it billed as the world’s first industrial octopus farm and processing plant near the port of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. In 2022 the Spanish fisheries group said it would invest €65 million and produce 3,000 tons of octopus per year on Gran Canaria by 2025, but activism and scientific criticism followed, especially after the Oscar-winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher” boosted the animal’s profile. By late July 2026, the project was dropped for “business and regulatory” reasons, according to a letter to the port authority. Reporting suggests the build never started and the farm may not have been viable, with experts citing the difficulty of farming octopus larvae and the challenge of feeding them fish paste they may reject.