I completely agree. Animal welfare seems hard to sell as a political issue for that very reason, but I still have some hope. I think that reducetarianism sells better than pushing for veganism because people do not need to go the full way.
Karthik Palakodeti
Karma: 358
Nirva Patel on the Ahimsa philosophy, producing films promoting veganism, and animal law at Harvard
Andre Abassi on invertebrate and insect protection legislation
Dr. Andrew Crump on scientific research into insect sentience
Dr. Heather Browning on animal sentience and ethics
Kim McCoy on animal law in Hong Kong and New Zealand
Kate Lupango on Animal Empathy Philippines
Healthier Hens’ Lukas Jasiūnas on improving hen welfare worldwide
Fish Welfare Initiative India’s Karthik Pulugurtha on fish welfare
Neil Dullaghan on the politics of animal welfare and EU policy
George Stiffman on promoting tofu in the West
Dr. Brinda Poojary on how to end animal testing
Jeronimo and Ririko from VegeProject on promoting plant-based food in Japan!
Yip Fai Tse on animal welfare & AI safety and long termism
Holly Elmore on reducing rodent suffering and wild animal welfare
respeggt’s Carmen Uphoff on innovative technology to end chicken culling
Interview: Sarah Gold from Legal Impact for Chickens on litigating for farmed animals in the United States! (repost from Karthik Logic blog)
Hi Nour,
I totally agree! I think I’m skeptical of insect farming and my concerns outweigh any of the hypothetical stuff I said about it playing out in a way that could be humane.
Hello Nour! Thank you SO MUCH for your questions!
Regarding your first point, I completely agree that it will be challenging to get companies to care about insect suffering. Firstly, I think there is little knowledge to begin with on what may or may not be painful for insects which means we exist only in the hypothetical where we assume that freezing is painless even though we don’t know for sure. Secondly, even if we were to figure that out, I think companies would only be interested in reducing insect suffering if it was profitable for them. One thing I think is that if companies have to mass produce insects they need to provide suitable mating conditions which cannot happen if they are in pain. Additionally, if we look at freezing or electrical shock as methods of death that are painless, companies may want to do that in order to preserve the dead insects for other companies in the supply chain as opposed to burning them or crushing them. That being said, there is still a chance that insects go through a lot of pain just through being farmed because billions upon billions of them are grown in tiny spaces in accordance to the profit incentives of the companies.I completely agree with the second point! I think that more insects would die when they are being farmed just because the whole purpose of insect farming is to grow so many only to ultimately kill them.
So my point on meals from fish was that insect farming has the potential to replace fishmeal which is feed for farmed animals like pigs, poultry, and even other farmed fish. Here is an article from the FAO about fishmeal as feed for farmed animals. I don’t think we’ll see humans eating insects directly until a very long time as you mentioned.
Again, thank you very much for your questions and do feel free to reach out in case there are any more :)
Yeah, maybe there are a few other reasons too like people not caring enough about animal welfare, lobbying from meat companies meaning both parties do not take up the issue, and even the overwhelming skepticism of veganism by even the most moderate of people. I completely agree with the fact that more data is needed to see to what extent any of this might be true.