Welfare considerations for mealworms and black soldier fly larvae in rapidly growing insect protein production.
Insect farming for protein presents unique welfare challenges at the frontier of moral consideration. The scientific evidence for sentience in mealworms and black soldier fly larvae is genuinely uncertain — their neurological complexity is far below that of vertebrates, but simplicity does not guarantee absence of experience. The scale of production — billions of individuals weekly — means that if insects do experience suffering, the welfare stakes are enormous. Precautionary welfare standards including appropriate temperature and density management, substrate quality, and humane slaughter methods are increasingly advocated even in the absence of certainty about sentience. The precautionary principle is the appropriate framework given this combination of scale and uncertainty.