Cricket farming for food and feed is growing globally, with welfare questions increasingly addressed by a nascent but developing insect welfare framework.
Cricket farming welfare is more seriously engaged than most insect farming sectors. Research has documented that crickets show conditioned fear responses, can learn, and appear to experience something when their limbs are injured. This behavioral evidence, while not conclusive proof of rich subjective experience, is sufficient to justify welfare consideration. The nascent cricket farming welfare movement focuses on rearing conditions that minimize crowding stress, provide hiding structures, optimize temperature and humidity, and use slaughter methods that minimize any potential suffering. Freezing is increasingly preferred over heat killing as a more humane slaughter method. As the global cricket farming industry scales toward feeding billions of farmed animals as well as humans, welfare standards development is urgently needed.