Farmed Cricket Welfare: Navigating Insect Sentience in Novel Protein Production

As farmed insects emerge as a sustainable protein source, the welfare of billions of crickets and other insects in commercial farming systems is raising important ethical questions about invertebrate sentience and suffering.

Key Facts

The global insect farming industry produces an estimated 1-3 trillion insects annually for human food, animal feed, and other uses
Crickets (Acheta domesticus) are among the most widely farmed insects, with farms housing millions of individuals in dense enclosures
Evidence for insect sentience is contested but growing — crickets show nociception, avoidance learning, and may experience pain-like states
Starvation, crushing during harvesting, and high-temperature freezing or blanching are common killing methods in insect farms
Crowding in commercial cricket farms well above field population densities raises questions about stress and abnormal behaviour
Cannibalism rates, which increase with density and nutritional deficiency, are used as welfare indicators in some studies
The Rethink Priorities welfare range estimate gives insects a very small but non-zero probability of having morally relevant experiences

Welfare Considerations

The welfare of farmed insects sits at the frontier of animal ethics. The sheer scale of insect farming — potentially trillions of individuals — means that even a small probability of sentience translates into an enormous potential welfare impact. Current evidence suggests crickets have the neurological capacity for basic pain-like responses. The precautionary principle, applied to a sector producing billions of animals in dense, resource-limited environments, supports investment in understanding and improving insect welfare even under uncertainty.

What You Can Do

Support research into insect sentience and the development of welfare standards for insect farming
Choose insect protein products from producers who are transparent about their welfare practices
Encourage insect farming certification bodies to include basic welfare standards in their schemes
Support policy development that includes insects in animal welfare regulatory frameworks
Donate to organisations such as Rethink Priorities that research insect welfare
Advocate for industry adoption of more humane killing methods if evidence of suffering increases
Engage thoughtfully with the ethical complexity of insect farming rather than dismissing welfare concerns