The rapidly growing insect farming industry processes billions of insects daily with almost no welfare regulation, and the scientific basis for insect welfare standards is urgently needed.
Insect farming welfare occupies a unique position at the frontier of animal welfare ethics: the scale is enormous, the welfare status is genuinely uncertain, and the regulatory framework is almost entirely absent. If insects are sentient even to a limited degree, the welfare implications of farming and killing billions daily under current industrial methods would be significant. The precautionary case for investigating and improving insect killing methods — particularly replacing potentially distressing high-temperature killing with rapid chilling that appears to induce a quiescent state before death — is strong even under uncertainty. Industry actors who invest in understanding and improving insect welfare demonstrate ethical leadership in an area where the science is developing. Consumer and regulatory pressure for welfare consideration in insect farming is beginning to emerge and should be encouraged.