Insect farming is expanding rapidly as a sustainable protein source, but raises welfare questions about the sentience and suffering capacity of billions of farmed black soldier flies, mealworms, and crickets.
Insect farming welfare represents a genuine scientific and ethical frontier. The evidence for insect sentience is weaker than for vertebrates but not absent, and the scale of production - billions to trillions of individuals - means that even small probabilities of suffering represent enormous aggregate potential harm. The welfare precautionary approach suggests investing in research to clarify insect sentience, and in the meantime implementing welfare improvements that have little cost - reducing crowding, developing humane slaughter methods, and ensuring appropriate temperature and humidity. The environmental benefits of insect farming over vertebrate alternatives are real and significant.