Insect farming for food and feed is growing rapidly, raising important welfare questions about the sentience of farmed insects and the ethics of mass production.
The welfare status of farmed insects is genuinely uncertain. Some neuroscientists argue that insects lack the neural architecture for subjective suffering, while others point to evidence of nociception and avoidance learning as potential indicators of sentience. Given this uncertainty, welfare-conscious insect production should apply precautionary principles: avoiding practices that would cause obvious suffering in higher-order animals, ensuring appropriate temperature, humidity, and nutrition, and prioritizing rapid killing methods. The sheer scale of insect farming means that even small probabilities of welfare relevance translate to enormous potential impact.