Insect farming is growing rapidly as a sustainable protein source. As scale increases to billions of individuals, the question of whether insects experience suffering has become urgent.
If insects experience pain — even in a limited form — then the scale of insect farming creates an enormous potential welfare issue. Billions of insects killed weekly. The precautionary principle suggests developing and adopting rapid, humane killing methods (rapid freezing, CO2, heat shock) before scale makes welfare retrofitting difficult.