Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah we are considering it but you can't just launch a kickstarter pozzible campaign and expect people to basically give you money.

You need to build a base of support and then launch a campaign. At the moment my support base is you guys and friends and family. That may be enough to get the funds we need but it I'm not certain. Through the website and other work I'll be doing I want to show people the value of what I can do and find more like minded people who want to get on board.

The problem with kickstarter is that you need to offer something as a reward. Most people won't offer money unless they are getting something back (wifi lightbulb, or whatever). It's tricky to find people motivated to give to something like a farm, unless you offered something like bags of fruit & Veg for sale. But then you'd be limited to locals only, and you'd have to be loosing out to make it worth it for them.

Exactly.

And I can't offer shares in the land because then you fall afoul of various laws and regulations.

Over time we will be able to use crowd funding effectively, plenty of other people have for agricultural stuff, but its probably not going to get us started.

Jonai Farms which is just the other side of town from me has successfully raised $30k twice. Once for their boning room and once for their small goods room. Tami and Stuart where able to do that because they already had a pretty good support base.

I don't. Yet.

I know 3 brothers who had a vision, no-one would invest in them, so they started small, learnt techniques along the way, the problems they had were small because the setup they had was small, they learnt more and more..
when they finally made profits from the first greenhouse, they built another and so on....and so on...

They now employee 90 staff and are one of the largest seedling growers for market gardeners in Australia..
the kicka is......its all still owned by the 3 brothers, (no investors)

All they did was "BACK THEMSELVES"..

Yeah the industry is full of stories like that Mudeye.

The challenge today is that the market has changed. Its not impossible to take that path but it is not as easy as it once was.

20 years ago a 1000m2 greenhouse could be profitable. You could start small and grow relatively easily. The guys that are around today are the ones that managed that journey successfully. You can see the evidence of the ones that failed along the way by driving in the country and seeing all the abandoned 1000 and 2000m2 greenhouses all over the place.

what I'm trying to say Stu, "with all due respect" is that it would be quite difficult to get investors if they are only asked to invest in an idea........ scaling back may need to be the initial approach.

the abandoned igloos you talk of are from amateurs who found a good water supply, leased a piece of land, bought about 50klms of black plastic hose and tried to feed the world with Asian food..

THE PROBLEM WAS: it was way too easy to do by people who knew nothing about it.

I'm sure fish framers are more enterprising than that

Oh the learning curve...

done a blog post but it seems it is only sort of there

http://www.fishfarmers.com.au/2015/07/31/why-a-cooperative-farm/

I agree. Which is why I've scaled back. I've come close three nearly four times to getting a large scale operation off the ground but my contacts are pretty much exhausted. I might get lucky and find an investor for a large scale operation but it would be luck. Once I get the first system off the ground I've got a list of people to go back to to invvest in the 2nd, 3rd, etc. systems.

The thing is the only one I really need investors for is the first one. I've got a business plan which describes the funding required to take the initial 3t system to 20t over 5 years. Once there our cash flow will allow us to expand pretty quickly. The opportunity for investment for investors will be in the early days after that I wan't to focus on developing the employee ownership side of things.



Some of them but not all. A lot of migrant families went into them who knew a lot about toms cukes and the like still failed because they didn't manage to expand.

We have a dear friend out of Adelaide going through a court case as we speak who knowing he is not allowed to sell fresh milk sold the cows that produced the milk. Several people owned one cow each and in return got free milk. (we are all hoping the state gov finds itself up shit creek with their court case)
But would something along those lines work.

Advertise locally for your 'alternative lifestylers' to invest in quality food produced by you?

Do they know about the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance. Its a legal defence fund for farmers.

I'm going out to dinner with Tami tonight can you give me anymore details and I'll run them past her.

http://www.stockandland.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/small-producers-set-up-legal-fund/2738928.aspx?storypage=0

Have sent you a PM

I thought that one got shut down/hassled because they were selling unpasteurized milk?

Technically they were selling the cows and then charging a management fee.

I think they can get off on all the food related charges but there are other things they could prosecute them for.

Our dumb ass, brain F****d state gov wants free enterprise but only when it suits them. Dont get me started or I'll be sent to general banter or banned cause this forum is family oriented.
I know a lot more than I'am able to say, sufficient that if the gov looses this case they are up the creek without a shovel and their heads buried in it all.

Call me a traditionalist, but here in the US the roadsides are littered with startups that took grant money and never learned to be self-sufficient. First make the concept work, THEN take grants/Investors to scale up.

Too bad you're not closer to me... I'd work for you for nuthin... I'm seriously excited for you. You have obviously put your time in and your understanding shows. I'm certain this can work on a commercial scale, and you seem to have a good head on your shoulders... I have no doubt you'll pull this off!

Poppa