Johannvdm

The problem is not so much the Axpert inverters but that they are by far the most frequently bought product.  For every other type of inverter there are 10 other people buying an Axpert inverter.
Why is that significant?
Because when so many people buy their product, a significant portion of them:
1) Don't know what they are doing, at all.  You'll commonly see "problems" on the forum here that come down to not wiring correctly, not using the correct wire gauge, not using the right kind of battery, etc.  Just general incompetence.  Some of my personal favorites is someone constantly overloading the inverter on a daily basis and finally the relay gives in and somehow it is because the product is marginal 🤯 (or the typical wiring positive to negative and vice versa followed by the inverter blowing up).
2) Installers that are equally incompetent as in 1.  A lot of "electricians" want to get into this new Axpert fad.  They don't actually have the understanding/skills/intellect required to install inverters but that doesn't stop them.
3) Volume means more likelihood of failures being reported.  Some amount of people buying these inverters will actually experience a legitimate failure not due to one of the above.  Because the volume of these inverters being bought compared to others, the likelihood of it being reported is proportionally higher.
Lastly there are some other factors:
1) Axpert inverters is a budget product, it has limitations and some of the documentation does not make this obvious.  Do your research.  If you are the type of person that doesn't do research, get an installer that isn't just the lowest bidder to install it for you.
2) There are some "bugs", reportedly some of the inverters stop charging the batteries too soon, the King has a bug reported by some people of not charging from solar (solar freezes that last some minutes).  Not sure if everyone experiences, it may be something unique to their installation.
 
With this all in mind, I've installed roughly 5 of these so far and the oldest has been running since 2014.  They all run 24/7 and have never had any issues.  That said, I didn't install them in a way that would allow them to be overloaded and I know what I'm doing when it comes to installing it and the limitations.
You can spend roughly twice as much for a Victron inverter, but don't expect it to take more punishment just because it is Victron.  The reality is, most people actually buying Victron for example, are willing to shell out for competent installers, so they don't often run into a lot of the problems above.  (Just one example).
This isn't lego.  You need to do research, look at the specs, buy according to the specs (+10-20% headroom as a general engineering rule).

What Calvin has done to change to a single phase connection might be a good way of saving some monthly charges. That single phase could act as backup when there is bad weather and also run your three phase equipment if you install a separate three phase inverter purely for the electric motors. That would enable you to install a single phase solar system that you can expand on later.
The only thing to look out for is if you decide to use the Eskom single phase and convert it to three phase, is the KW size of your equipment, as I think the inverters to three phase only go up to 7KW. So motors bigger than 7KW becomes a problem to run. Then also the saving might be reduced again due to the high Eskom rate but I’m sure as a backup lifeline Eskom is definitely still worth having.

There are a couple of solutions available my opinion is a little baised when it comes to inverters. Axpert clone inverters are definately not what I would recommend for your application. Lets face it your inverter is the corner stone of your whole solar power system so choosing the correct inverter is very important. Future expandability also plays a major factor. So before we look at solar panels and batteries I would recommend you look at the following options The Victron Multiplus series inverters are very good but a comple 3 phase package will cost the price of a small farm they work very well with Grid tied inverters like Fronius and Solis they are also compatible with most batteries on the market. Configuration and setup gets complicated and you require a lot of addons to make the system work according to your needs. I would recommend you get advice from the Victron experts on the forum if you want to go that route. Your next option would be Sunsynk or Deye inverter range also a very good product packed with features out of the two brands I would personally go with Sunsynk they have excellent after sales service and backup definately an up and comming product whats nice about these inverters is that they are all in one device they can supply solar power to the grid side and the off grid side of the inverter they support all major battery brands comes with a 5 year warranty etc If you plan to self install then looking at this product would be a good choice it is easy and simple to install and setup. You can also run up to 10 of them in parallel in single or three phase configuration.
However your cheapest route would be to change your 3 phase eskom connection to a single phase connection. This will reduce the cost of the inverters considerably. Any three phase equipment you need to run can be run with single to three phase variable speed drives this means you can power three phase motors with a single phase power point. 
I hope this gives you more clarity.

There are basically 3 types of inverter, although in those broad  'types' there could be many different brands and models with slightly different functionality.
You get the PV grid-tied inverters which basically connect solar panels to the grid. i.e. They feed any available solar power into the AC grid and they don't have a battery connection, which means they rely on the presence of the grid to operate so if the grid goes down (load shedding etc.) they stop working.
Then you get hybrid inverters which work in a similar way to PV grid-tied inverters, in that the inverter operates in parallel with the grid, but these have a battery input, which means that they can continue to operate when the grid is not available. To do this, they have to be able to disconnect from the grid and still power your essential loads, so they typically have 2 AC ports, a grid port and a load port. There are many brands of hybrid inverters with subtle differences.
Then off-grid inverters are basically any inverter that doesn't run in parallel with the grid. There are LOTS of these as well, even some that have very similar functionality to hybrid inverters with only some small differences, such as they cannot supply large loads with a mix of PV and grid power, or use excess PV power to offset the power use of non-essential loads that are not connected to the inverter's load port.
I have heard that the Axpert King is actually not bad, although I haven't used them myself but I'm sure plenty of people on this forum have and will be able to advise you there.
You need 3 of them if you have 3 phase loads that you want to supply, or if you need to supply loads of up to 15kW. Without knowing more about your requirements it is difficult to give advice here.

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That sounds much more manageable, I am no expert but DIY on such a system would be much easier. 🙂

I am also a farmer with similar usage as you.  I have gone off-grid for the sort of cost you are talking about (R350k because it was DIY), but be aware that you may need to buy at the lower end (Axpert) rather than the Victron at your budget.
Real key is whether you intend keeping the ESKOM connection (with it's massive fixed connection charge), switch to a Land Light 60A single phase (no connection charge but over R5/kWh) or drop ESKOM entirely.
For me the sensible option ended up the 60A single phase - it is essentially a hassle free generator at lower costs than running a generator.  That way you can size your batteries to keep you going overnight and run on ESKOM only during extended bad weather (I have just run through the Cape winter without using any ESKOM power at all). The batteries are the single biggest expense.
Be very careful with VAWTs.  See this blog https://scoraigwind.co.uk/2016/12/what-is-it-about-vertical-axis/

Basically this idea arose from seeing what could be done with leftover feed bales, which then lead to an epiphany about nutrient cycles and a better understanding of soil characteristics. Google and read about permaculture principles as that informs a lot of what I am doing.
I do use wood ash as a fertilisers, particularly putting it around fruit trees as it has lots of K and other alkaline oxides.
We try and incorporate anything organic into the whole system so for any 'waste' the logic goes like this:
1. Will the dog eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
2. Will the poultry eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
3. Will the Livestock eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
4. Is it compostible? Yes/ No go to next option:
5. Can we use it for something? Yes/ No go to next option:
6. Is it recyclable? Yes/ No go to next option:
7. No? Lets not buy this again!
So anything organic goes back into the soil, either directly, or via the digestive tract of an animal or by composting, which in turn grows into something to feed back into the process.
 

Next up squash:

 
And tomatoes:

 

The drip irrigation is going in now. This irrigation is fed by a storage dam, and the head is only about 2 m so I am using 40mm LDPE pipe, with 6mm holes drilled for water delivery. The holes are 1m apart so these will be used for tomatoes and squash or pumpkins.
The reason I am not using commercial drip tape, is that it needs higher pressure to get the water flowing through the fine holes, and the algae from the dam blocks up the fine holes very quickly. To prevent this the larger holes are drilled on the top of the pipe, so any gunk settles to the bottom of the pipe and the water comes out through the top. The water looks clean and sparkly, but it is actually quite green. If the big pipes block up, I can just flush them out to clean them.

What I am also going to try to do is manage the beds on a strip system, so I will use tractor power for any heavy work, but try and keep the soil disturbance and compaction to a minimum. I have laid out strip beds so that the tractor always drives on the same tracks. In that way I get a 1.4m wide bed, and then a 60cm wide wheel track followed by another 1.4m bed and so on. 
I will probably need to use a bit of chemical fertilizer to jump start the system, but once the plants are growing nicely, I will try and cycle the crop residue back into the ground that it grew from.
The other challenge is planting though the crop residue. In v1. 0 I am doing it by hand, planting seedlings. On a large scale that will be too time consuming, so I will need to look at some sort of no till seed planter. I have a hand planter, bit that still only does one seed at a time, so I will need to get some sort of planter or drill.
To that end I have bought an old row cultivator, that I am going to try and convert into a planter eventually. 
For those that are interested, lots of farms are using no till, vertical till, minimal till, row till and variations of these to miminise soil disturbance as part of a conservation  agriculture system. Google down that rabbit hole. 

Seedlings are coming on nicely in the tunnel:

And the first bush beans are planted out under small shade net tunnels to prevent attacks by marauding chickens..

We also do some veggies . I like your idea and is thinking to do a part of the garden deep mulching . Have installed some shade netting witch does help a bit with the heat and wind . I make my own compost and try to get it balanced by adding some horse and cow manure . Do you use woodash as a potash supplement . May you have a good season this year .