Insect farming is the fastest-growing protein sector globally. As billions of insects are farmed for food and feed, welfare questions about insect sentience and humane production methods are becoming urgent.
Insect welfare represents the frontier of animal welfare science where the evidence base is genuinely minimal and the moral stakes are potentially enormous given the scale of production. If insects have any capacity for suffering — and the uncertainty is genuine rather than resolved — then the numbers involved in insect farming dwarf all vertebrate animal use combined. The precautionary principle motivates taking insect welfare seriously even under uncertainty: the cost of implementing welfare-conscious practices is low, while the benefit if insects do suffer would be preventing suffering at extraordinary scale. The emerging field of insect welfare science is beginning to provide data that will reduce this uncertainty over the coming decade.