Coldwater aquaculture — A potential agribusiness

India is the second largest producer of inland fish in the world, after China and has huge untapped potential resources, including cold water streams. This sector can provide opportunities for future agri-business in the hilly states and will help in harnessing the untapped potential under aquaculture, packaging, transportation, and supply network. The paper is focused on experiences of cold water aquaculture (trout farming) in four blocks of the Mandi district in Himachal Pradesh. Factors like availability of cold water streams, subsidy, expectation of high returns, etc. have motivated the first generation entrepreneurs to undertake the high-value cold water aquaculture. Three of the four units studied, have incurred losses on account of inadequate feeding, poaching, poisoning and diversion of water flow by local miscreants. The study has revealed that trout being cannibalistic in nature, inadequate feeding had led to poor yield and inadequacy of technical know-how, lack of hands-on experience, lack of insurance products as well as credit compounded the problems. The adverse effect of failure has been reported to be managed through income from other sources, including crop cultivation and subsidy from the government. Some of the strategies suggested to overcome the problems are promotion of cluster development of trout farms; development of backward and forward linkages; establishment of hatcheries, feed mills; mobile aqua clinics, one-stop aqua shops, publicprivate partnership, and the coordinated efforts of all the stakeholders in the development process.