Mealworms are farmed in large quantities as food and animal feed with emerging welfare considerations as invertebrate sentience research advances.
Mealworms in commercial farming are kept at densities and temperatures primarily optimized for growth and feed conversion with minimal welfare consideration. Emerging evidence of insect nociceptive capacity creates uncertainty about the welfare significance of current practices. The precautionary principle suggests that when farming billions of potentially sentient animals, welfare standards should be developed even under uncertainty.