Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Stuart

For what its worth, I would really like you to succeed. I don't have the money to invest,if I did I would.
Aquaponics in Oz needs someone to get off their ass and do it properly on a commercial basis (even starting out small).
Ok that should have been ask me nicely.

A big part of the problem and a part that I want to help solve is access to capital. Corporate agriculture has access to capital and because they can kept LOTS of CHEAP finance they can out compete family farms.

Many of the farmers being forced off their land in QLD at the moment had never missed a payment on their mortgages. Despite this the banks DEEMED them to be a "high risk" and so they increased their interest rates. This adversely effected their cash position so that when the bank reviewed their situation they reviewed and increased their risk profile and increased their interest rate. Some farmers who had some seriously good reserves put away for periods of drought have seen them evaporate not due to increased costs or lack of income but increased interest rates.

There is even the suggestion that farms with cash reserves actually had their interest rates put up because "they could afford to pay".

That sort of thing doesn't happen to corporate agribusiness because ASIC regulates larger companies and if a bank did it to a larger company it would come to light much more easily. Things like this only come to light for family operations when they happen on a large scale and so attract attention.

Check out Spudshed in WA and look at the history. This is just an an analogy (And a very hirsute individual).

Don't worry Stu, the chinese will buy up all the farms in Oz eventually anyways. They have plenty of cash and can afford the increased interest rates.

Nice website Stuart and all the best with your new venture.

I'm a web developer by trade and you invited feedback on the previous page so I thought I'd chime in. It looks like a modified version of the Wordpress theme that designsonyourbusiness is using for their website. I noticed a couple of the images are enormous (but reduced in sized on the page), which takes a while to load on broadband. This will take even longer over mobile connections and won't be a great experience for those visitors. Eg, the photo of Sarah on the About Us page and the fish on "Our Solutions". It's fairly simple to resize images but let me know if you need a hand with that - I have basic Photoshop skills.

Another thing I'd look at is fonts. When you zoom in on the page they don't enlarge because they're fixed size/height rather than relative (ems). A quick count revealed at least 5 different fonts across the site. The ideal number is 2 or maybe 3 from a design point of view and this improves performance as you're not loading too many custom font files.

It's also good to include meaningful "alt" tags on all images. This is what automated screen readers will read to visually impaired when they come across an image, so choose something descriptive rather than the image filename which is what appears to be in use at the moment. This also helps with Google search rankings.

I would also look at a few splashes of colour to contrast with the mostly grey/white design. Perhaps ask your logo designer to choose some secondary colours that align with your branding and apply those to headings or other page elements.

I hope this feedback comes across as constructive feedback rather than criticism. It's a nice looking site overall and will be invaluable when you officially launch the business. All the best!

Paul

Thanks Sammo.

We were aware of the photo size issue but I wasn't aware that they hadn't all been fixed.

The fonts thing was a surprise I don't know how we got so many fonts

For the "alt" tags would it make sense that the captions become the alt tags? Would that be too long?

We have some plans for colour but ran out of time

I've posted the link in a few places round about the net but if any of you guys could share it in the relevant places where you have a presence I would be grateful.

I could drop into various facebook groups and forums but if I don't have a presence there already it would be a bit weird. I know we always find it a bit off putting when someone turns up here and in their first two or three posts links their website or their new project.

If you think its appropriate and if you have a presence in a group I'd be grateful if you could share the link.

Hi Stuart, re ALT tags/attributes, here's a good overview: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/altAttribute

I think if you add a picture of me on the home page your profits will double.

Maybe if it was your little one with maybe a touch of charlie toes.

haha

Don't sell yourself short Charlie, 300% would be closer to the mark

Stu,
nice webpage, have left a comment (its in our solution dropdown)
Have you tried for a Gov Grant, sustainable farming, organic, enormous water savings, etc etc, seems like a lot of boxes are already ticked...
School groups could get involved, show and tell days, information days on sustainability, basic and advanced fish culture.. water purity, blah blah blah, its endless.
I know schools can and do use their allotted funds to build small aquaponic systems for hands on learning.. maybe a lot of the capital could come from school lectures, school groups attending day outs.. "plus a whooping big grant"

here's a thought, after your fish are up and growing, I'm am sure their would be a lot of locals around Daylesford who would jump at the chance to grow fruit and veg organically and learn about AP's.
BUILD MORE GROWBEDS AND RENT THEM OUT TO co-inside with the seasons.

There's tons and tons of ways to gain Capital. you don't really need investors, you only need to run with some ideas. (Head first or not at all.)

I've pretty much given up on grants. All too often they work out to be not worth the hours, regulation and over sight.

Once you get going the grant process is much easier and you can literally get money handed to you.

I'm going to need about 250k to get started. I've got close to half that. Need the balance from some where or I really have to scale down.

not sure about this ?

what about Kickstarter ? https://www.kickstarter.com/

or crowdfunding ? just an idea...