My life started in Agriculture in NE Victoria, in the early 70's armed with a Diploma of Farm Management I ran a 700ha family farm plus a 300ha hill country block. It was mixed farming, including fat lambs and cattle. I built a 20ha lake and installed 100ha of irrigated lucerne and fodder crops.
In the 1982 drought I built high efficiency shearing sheds to provide income and grafted walnut trees for the farm. We built most of our own farming equipment, modifying old gear so it was highly efficient.
We raised yabbies (freshwater crayfish) in the lake which grew at 3 times the known rate, so we started Australian Yabby Farms. We developed a system to hibernate the yabbies, breed in mass and export live, lifting the price from $5/kg to around $20/kg. They were no longer a muddy creature but a gourmet item and we could hold a 3 month menu of identical yabbies in hibernation for the restaurants.
I was operations manager in the Ovens Valley NE Vic, for the Peppermint Industry installing a 300hp boiler for distillation and modifying all the harvest equipment, taking it from experimental to commercial level. (I do great grappa.) I also ran vegetable growing trials for the tobacco farmers looking for alternate crops and grew 100,000 cauli's and broccoli.
I then returned into aquaculture, with a management buyout of a farm growing native fish, in central NSW. We learned to be 300% more efficient with our breeding by synchronising with the moon, and designed a number of new growing systems. This culminated in planning a $150m Pacific Co-operative fish farming venture, 18 sea cage farms spread from Milne Bay to Fiji and the Marshall Islands. The GFC killed the humanitarian funds.
For the last 20 years I have been in Cairns running an Environmental Rehabilitation business, a Quality Assurance business, Communication training and coaching and I still market & install fabric structures. My latest venture is a coworking space which is a block away and available for your use.