Stephen Cadogan: Animal welfare protections look set to move down the food chain
Protections? Require Image Welfare Had Industrial Also Of Animal But Green Insect Appeal Scale Will A Insects The Agriculture
Farmers who think animal welfare concerns are "over the top" when it comes to the main farmed livestock may welcome a more level playing field following recent extensions of welfare to other species.
For example, the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 passed in the UK recognised animal sentience in law for the first time, and included all vertebrates and some invertebrates such as octopuses and lobsters.
Previously, the UK relied on the EU legislation requiring member states to protect them "since animals are sentient beings, pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals".
So what about insects, an increasingly farmed species, with investors estimated to have pumped €1.56bn into insect farming over the past decade?
That's only a small fraction of the estimated €194bn invested globally in agri-food startups, largely stimulated by the historically low interest rates since the 2008 financial crisis. But industrial-scale insect agriculture had the appeal of a green image, with even the EU seeing a significant role for insect farming in the sustainable future for its food system envisaged by the EU Green Deal. The green image could however fade, if worries over insect welfare increase.
The question of whether insects are sentient beings has been raised by Jonathan Birch, professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics.
In his book published earlier this year ( ), he says there are no solid answers to the question of which animals should count as sentient, meaning able to feel pleasure and pain.
But he has said in interviews that insects are “sentience candidates”, and that the emerging insect farming industry needs to take welfare more seriously.
Birch was one of those that the British government turned to when it wanted to enshrine the welfare of all sentient animals into law in its 2022 legislation.
Then the leader of a Foundations of Animal Sentience project, the philosopher was commissioned by the government to advise on what animals the law would consider conscious. He and his team surveyed evidence, and recommended that cephalopod molluscs (like octopuses) and decapod crustaceans (like crabs) be included as sentient beings.
On insects, the expert jury is out.
Even PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the largest animal rights organisation in the world, with more than 9m members and supporters, seems to consider insects as adversaries, and encourages non-lethal methods of controlling them, whenever possible.
Could that change if insects gain importance as a food source? Would they be included among what animal welfare activists say are billions of animals raised for food, living for short periods in squalid conditions before dying horrible deaths?
Will they move on from the “sentience candidates” status recommended by Birch, who has been named in the Vox website as one of their Future Perfect 50 list of "innovators, thinkers and changemakers working to make the future a better place".
