aquaculture

Octopus farming is still being trialled in Spain, but output is limited. Octopus and other cephalopods have not been farmed in a commercially successful way as yet. Technology for rearing octopuses is still embryonic since it is still not possible to reproduce the full biological cycle. Industrial production is based on capturing juveniles in the wild, put them into cages and feed them.

The Japan Sea Farming Association has recommenced an experimental octopus farming programme. Last spring (2001) the station achieved the survival of 75 per cent of spawned juvenile octopus and reared them for 25 days. Globally, this was the first time this had ever been accomplished. As many as 16 million juveniles grew to the stage of having 20 sucking disks each, the same number a parent octopus has. However, most of them perished within three months.

GLOBEFISH (the FAO Fisheries Department responsible for international fish trade information) report low supplies of octopus available on the market internationally.

2004 was characterised by low supplies of octopus, especially from Morocco, and sky high prices. Octopus is becoming a premium priced product, with Japan offering top prices for large-sized octopus. No change is foreseen for 2005, with Morocco putting even more stringent resource management schemes into place.