How policymakers and regulators are beginning to address insect sentience and welfare in law and practice.
Insect welfare policy is at the frontier of animal protection law, grappling with genuine scientific uncertainty about subjective experience in animals with radically different nervous systems from vertebrates. The precautionary approach adopted by some regulators for crustaceans — extending welfare protections before certainty about sentience is established — represents a more defensible ethical position than waiting for proof that may be philosophically unavailable. Given the scale of insect farming, even modest improvements in killing methods could affect the welfare of enormous numbers of animals.