As insect farming for food and feed grows rapidly, questions about insect sentience and welfare are gaining urgency despite significant scientific uncertainty.
Insect farming presents the welfare field with a genuinely uncertain challenge. Unlike vertebrates, the case for insect sentience is scientifically contested rather than established. However, the precautionary principle applies powerfully here: the scale is enormous (potentially trillions of animals), the cost of welfare improvements is low, and the cost of ignoring welfare if insects are sentient would be enormous. Investment in insect sentience research and low-cost welfare improvements such as rapid slaughter methods and appropriate substrate provision is a proportionate response to this uncertainty.