The rapid growth of insect farming for protein raises important and unresolved questions about whether insects experience pain or suffering, with the precautionary principle suggesting welfare consideration is warranted.
Insect farming presents perhaps the most challenging welfare question in the entire animal welfare landscape — not because the potential suffering is particularly visible, but because the scientific uncertainty about insect sentience is so profound and the numbers involved so enormous. If insects experience even minimal forms of suffering, the welfare implications of farming them at current scales would exceed those of all vertebrate animal farming combined. The honest position is that we do not know enough to either dismiss insect welfare concerns or to treat them with certainty. The precautionary principle — acting to prevent potential suffering before certainty is established — recommends developing welfare standards for key dimensions of insect farming including rearing conditions, killing methods and stocking density, while investing urgently in the neuroscience needed to resolve the underlying uncertainty.