Evidence for insect sentience is growing, with significant implications for how we treat the most numerous animals on Earth.
If insects have even minimal capacity for suffering, the welfare implications are staggering: they are the most numerous animals on Earth and trillions are killed annually in farming, pest control, and incidental impacts of human activity. The evidence for insect sentience is preliminary but growing. The precautionary principle suggests taking insect welfare seriously as a field of inquiry even before certainty is achieved, and developing welfare standards for insect farming that can be refined as evidence accumulates.