As insect farming scales to meet protein demand, questions about the capacity of insects to suffer and appropriate welfare standards become increasingly important.
Insect welfare sits at the frontier of animal welfare science. The behavioral and neurological evidence for insect sentience is genuinely uncertain — some researchers believe insects can suffer, others are skeptical. Given this uncertainty and the enormous scale of insect farming (trillions of individuals), a precautionary approach is warranted. Fast-killing methods, appropriate stocking densities, and attention to environmental conditions are reasonable precautions that impose minimal cost on producers.