The insect farming industry is growing rapidly as a sustainable protein source. Whether farmed insects can suffer — and how to improve their welfare — is an important open question.
Insect farming occupies a unique welfare grey zone. The evidence for sentience is insufficient to conclude insects suffer in the way vertebrates do, but also insufficient to rule it out — particularly for species like crickets and cockroaches. Given the enormous numbers involved and the precautionary principle, developing welfare guidelines for insect farming makes sense even under uncertainty. The most tractable welfare improvements are likely at the population level: optimising rearing conditions for natural behaviour expression, reducing crowding-induced stress, and developing humane killing methods. The welfare cost per insect may be low, but multiplied across billions of individuals, even small improvements matter if insects are sentient at all.