Conceptual analysis proposes coastal seaweed farming to decrease sentient animal production in aquaculture, suggesting an economically viable marine shift toward non-sentient primary producers.
Oldfield & Bonano (2024) (O&B) document how far fish welfare research lags behind welfare research in other animals. We share O&B’s feelings-based concept of welfare and agree that aquaculture seeded this field; but research volume has not scaled with animal numbers: Welfare attention per farmed fish or decapod remains negligible. Along the lines of preceding commentaries (Maia 2024, Mather 2024), we treat farmed aquatic animals as individuals rather than tonnage. We then raise a point so far absent from the commentary on O&B so far: reducing the number of sentient animals entering intensive systems. Coastal seaweed farming, which cultivates non-sentient primary producer organisms, is the marine analogue of the plant-based shift on land – and it is credible economically.
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Patil et al. (2026) studied this question.
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