As someone who has been concerned about insects as an area for years, I think the aspect that stops animal-focused people I speak to from engaging with insects as a cause area is not really to do with scale or neglectedness. Many vegans do not eat honey; suggesting a concern for the bees creating it, and SWP (https://​​www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/​​) has gotten quite a lot of support from the animal movement. The issue is pretty directly tied to tractability and concrete actions that can be taken. If the current inventions focused on insects are research-orientated with unclear pathways for how insects do in fact get helped, that will be a blocking factor for many EA animal advocates. I think in many cases right now, people see insect welfare much like wild animal suffering; as an interesting, high scale area with no clear significant actions that can be taken.
In expanding what Joey said, I think another aspect of why insect work may be a bit less tractable is to do with optics. I think in the broader public sphere, insect farming has been seen as a potential solution to food insecurity and a sustainable agricultural solution requiring less land and water etc. This may make it somewhat harder to gain significant traction in the space.
That being said, I think one particularly large area where work might be interesting in working on is slowing down insect farming for animal feed, which I imagine would cause less public disagreement than slowing down insect farming for human consumption purposes.
As someone who has been concerned about insects as an area for years, I think the aspect that stops animal-focused people I speak to from engaging with insects as a cause area is not really to do with scale or neglectedness. Many vegans do not eat honey; suggesting a concern for the bees creating it, and SWP (https://​​www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/​​) has gotten quite a lot of support from the animal movement. The issue is pretty directly tied to tractability and concrete actions that can be taken. If the current inventions focused on insects are research-orientated with unclear pathways for how insects do in fact get helped, that will be a blocking factor for many EA animal advocates. I think in many cases right now, people see insect welfare much like wild animal suffering; as an interesting, high scale area with no clear significant actions that can be taken.
In expanding what Joey said, I think another aspect of why insect work may be a bit less tractable is to do with optics. I think in the broader public sphere, insect farming has been seen as a potential solution to food insecurity and a sustainable agricultural solution requiring less land and water etc. This may make it somewhat harder to gain significant traction in the space.
That being said, I think one particularly large area where work might be interesting in working on is slowing down insect farming for animal feed, which I imagine would cause less public disagreement than slowing down insect farming for human consumption purposes.