Insect farming for food, feed and protein is growing rapidly, raising urgent welfare questions given the scale — billions of insects farmed — and significant uncertainty about insect sentience and capacity for suffering.
Insect farming welfare presents a unique challenge because the scale of potential welfare harm is enormous while uncertainty about insect sentience is high. If insects have any capacity for suffering — even at a low level — the billions farmed annually represent a welfare concern of potentially massive scale. The precautionary principle suggests that this uncertainty warrants research investment and welfare consideration rather than dismissal. Killing method choice matters under precautionary reasoning: freezing may cause slow death if insects experience cold distress, while other methods may be faster. The growth of insect farming as a sustainable protein source creates an urgent need for welfare frameworks before the industry scales to many orders of magnitude larger.