Reinventing the pond: How this Bengal start-up is helping fish farmers battle climate and credit crisis

At a conference in Japan in 2017, Arka Prava Das learned about the devastating effects of climate change on global protein sources, such as beef, pork, chicken, and fish. A native of West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri, a city well-known for its variety of freshwater fishes and aquaculture farming, Das began to worry about the fish farmers in the region. Along with his childhood friend, environmental speaker Subhadeep Mitra, he conducted a survey across northeastern India to assess how aware the farmers are about the threats climate change poses to aquaculture.

“We came to know (fish) farmers are not ready for climate change, and they do not even understand what is coming and what is going to happen. The farming experience they have of 15-20 years will no longer give them an edge. These farmers are reactive; they only take measures after disasters hit them. They needed to be pro-active, and technology will be one of the key factors for the predictive part,” said Das, explaining the whole context of why he and Mitra started Essential Aquatech in 2019.

Das pointed out that over 90% of farmers in the region have very small farms, with less than 1 hectare of pond, and are traditionally run. Essential Aquatech helps these farmers with a variety of solutions, including technology-based predictions, solutions around incoming disasters, and farm inputs. They also create credit scores for the fish farmers.


The team currently monitors over 5,000 farmers, managing 8,000 acres of aquaculture across eastern and northeastern India.


No fish to fry?

The freshwater fisheries segment is about 10 times larger than the shrimp sector in India. The eastern and northeastern belts of India account for the larger share of consumption. “More than 52% is consumed on this part only,” Das said.

In the last 10 years, the fisheries sector in India has shown a sustained annual average growth rate of 8.74%, and the total fish production jumped from 95.79 lakh tonnes in 2013-14 to 197.75 lakh tonnes in 2024-25, as per data from the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying.

While fish production in the country is growing, just like the rest of the world’s resources, aquaculture is facing the impact of climate change.

“Due to rising temperatures, ecological changes are happening in the ponds, particularly based on the plankton basis, and the dissolved oxygen ratios are getting down. This is leading to the spread of particularly bacterial or fungal disease at a rapid rate, which used to be seen mostly in winter. However, now it is coming in July. This, in turn, is further leading to the farmer losing his entire crop by 72 hours,” Das explained.

India’s average temperature has increased by almost 0.7 degrees Celsius during 1901-2018, the Ministry of Earth Sciences recently told Parliament. Frequency of very strong cyclonic storms in the post-monsoon season has increased significantly (+1 event per decade) in the past two decades (2000–2018). And the frequency of daily precipitation extremes (rainfall intensities >150 mm per day) increased by 75% in 1950-2015. The frequency and spatial spread of droughts have also increased significantly during 1951-2015, it said.

Divya Kumar Gulati, Chairman, Compound Livestock Feed Manufacturers Association (CLFMA) of India, said that climate change is becoming an increasingly important risk for India’s fisheries and aquaculture sector, with rising sea temperatures, erratic rainfall, changing salinity levels, and extreme weather events affecting aquatic ecosystems, fish availability, and farming conditions.

“Technology will be central to anticipating and managing these risks. Real-time monitoring of water temperature, dissolved oxygen and salinity, combined with early-warning systems, weather forecasts, disease surveillance and data-led farm management, can help farmers take preventive action rather than respond after losses occur,” he said.

Essential Aquatech has built a preventive measure system that gives farmers alerts for the next 15 days about rains, heatwaves, and incoming disease, among others, along with actionable advisory. This is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and is run on WhatsApp. A farmer can send details about his pond, his crops, the kind of farming he does, etc. Then, the Essential Aquatech team tracks their pond through a satellite system and a weather monitoring system and provides the farmers with the respective alerts.

Fo example: “Your pH will be down, so you have to use lime.” If the farmer has a 1-acre pond, the system tells him how much lime to use in how much time.

For this feature, a Voice AI model has been integrated directly into WhatsApp. “Farmers simply need to speak in their local languages without needing to type anything,” he said.

In this process, the company is also creating a database of the farmers’ crop growth, which in turn will help build a credit score for lending purposes, known as AquaIQ. Das explained that less than 2% of fish farmers have access to formal credits or an insurance system. Schemes like PMMSY and Kisan Credit Card are not able to work due to poor credit scores because most of the farmers do not have the right kind of bank account.

“Therefore, alternative data becomes crucial, whether that farmer is doing good, whether his business is profitable, etc.,” he said, adding that the non-performing assets in aquaculture are double that of agriculture with the former being 15% and the latter 4-6%.

Another key feature of the company’s platform is TOROS Next, which caters to larger enterprises, FPO cooperatives, and government bodies by building on their AquaIQ financial intelligence module. It provides live geospatial registry data across states like West Bengal and Assam, detailing existing wetlands, active fish farming locations, and real-time production yields.

Challenges

Today, the most critical issue, Das said, is widespread input adulteration in the freshwater fishery sector, ranging from commercial feeds and raw ingredients to water treatment supplements and medicines. “Due to a lack of regulatory oversight, farmers often fall into the trap of buying low-cost, counterfeit products. Believing they are cutting costs, they unwittingly ruin their entire crop, which in eastern and northeastern India directly translates to losing their primary livelihood,” he said.


Brisk future

While the company’s AI-driven advisory and technology is completely free of charge to farmers, its primary revenue stream comes from selling high-quality farming inputs. Das said that through our in-house research, they have developed a proprietary line of 22 eco-friendly products, including soil, water, and gut probiotics, as well as specialised water treatment solutions, tailored for every stage of fish farming.

“Additionally, we supply farmers with high-grade fingerlings (fish seeds) and nutritionally balanced fish feeds. Whenever our platform generates actionable advisory for a farmer, such as recommending specific protein feeds or probiotic treatments, the required inputs are made accessible through multiple sales channels. These include our own e-commerce platform, Fishart.com, third-party marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, and ONDC, as well as an on-ground distribution network of B2B dealers and Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs),” he said.

He added that this freemium advisory model has driven strong financial growth, yielding a 47% CAGR over the last three years, with projected revenues crossing Rs 3 crore for the current fiscal year. They are now planning to monetise AquaIQ and TOROS Next, among other solutions via API subscription models to larger institutions.

Anurag Chaturvedi, Senior Business Advisor, Greenr by TechnoServe, an accerator supporting the company, said, "Following our three-stage assessment of applicants, Essential Aquatech emerged as a unique aquaculture technology company working to reform India's inland fish farming value chain. Their solutions cover the entire value chain: from integrated AI-driven water testing, disease analysis, and pond health management to providing high-quality, nutrient-rich feed and facilitating reliable market linkages, ensuring fair pricing and instant payments for farmers."

The company is now targeting to expand its reach by 10-fold to 50,000 farmers over the next five years.