As insect farming scales rapidly, welfare researchers and regulators are developing the first welfare frameworks specifically addressing the billions of insects farmed globally.
Insect welfare frameworks represent the most challenging frontier in applied animal welfare science. The combination of genuine uncertainty about insect sentience, extreme scale of production and rapid industry growth creates urgency for precautionary standards development. The risk of getting this wrong — either causing massive unnecessary suffering if insects can suffer, or imposing unnecessary costs if they cannot — argues for transparent, evidence-based framework development under genuine uncertainty. The relatively low cost of welfare improvements for insects (given their small size and production systems) makes precautionary adoption feasible.