PROJECT
Empowering Adaptive Graziers
Stories from Country in the Burnett Mary
Farming landscapes are changing.
Across regional Queensland, graziers are navigating drought, floods, rising input costs and shifting seasons — all while carrying the long-term health of their land. The question is no longer just how to get through the next dry spell or flood event, but how to build landscapes resilient enough to adapt to whatever the future brings.
Empowering Adaptive Graziers in the Burnett Mary (EAG) was built to help producers do exactly that. Through world-class, heavily subsidised education, on-farm assessments and one-on-one support, the program backs graziers to read their country, change their management, and rebuild the natural systems their businesses depend on.
These are the stories of Burnett Mary graziers putting it into practice — the lessons, the setbacks and the transformations reshaping their properties and their livelihoods.
Stories from Country
Episode 1
What changes underground changes everything above it. A look at the soil-health practices reshaping productivity paddock by paddock.
Building Soil, Building Resilience
Episode 2
A grazier opens up on the moment the penny dropped, how new ways of reading land condition turned drought from a threat to manage into a system to rebuild.
What EAG Changed
Episode 3
Splitting paddocks, resting country and watching ground cover return. One participant walks the changes you can now see from the fence line.
Evidence in the Landscape
Episode 3
Natural sequence farming in action, contours and leaky weirs holding water in the landscape, rehydrating country that once ran dry.
Slowing the Flow
A group of graziers and educators take on drought, runoff, erosion and legacy.
Healthy landscapes support stronger farming systems.
Adaptive grazing practices can help:
increase groundcover and biomass
improve landscape hydration
support long term farm productivity
strengthen drought resilience
reduce sediment runoff from paddock to reef
Small changes on the ground can unlock lasting impact across entire landscapes.
A movement,
by the numbers
Since launching in February 2025, EAG has grown from two sold-out forums into a regional movement.
Since launching in February 2025, EAG has grown from two sold-out forums into a regional movement.
Twenty grazing businesses received the full program valued at over $25,000 per business. A further 38 landholders jumped at the unique opportunity to join Nicole Masters, internationally acclaimed author and agroecologist, for her exclusive 3 day Soil Health Masterclass, and six BMRG Youth Ambassadors were offered the opportunity to strengthen career opportunities by attending all courses, carrying these skills into the next generation of agriculture.
600+
GUESTS
250+
GRAZIERS
at the launch forums across the North Burnett and Fraser Coast
applied to join the program
20+
GRAZING BUSINESSES
3
EDUCATION COURSES
delivered the full program of education, assessments and consults
that is internationally acclaimed delivered on-farm
supported across courses and masterclasses
LANDHOLDERS
58+
~1,050
REGISTRATIONS
to EAG events to date
About Empowering Adaptive Graziers
Empowering Adaptive Graziers in the Burnett Mary is a major regenerative agriculture program delivered by BMRG, providing graziers subsidised access to world-class education and on-farm support to build more sustainable, profitable and resilient grazing operations.
Grazing covers a vast share of the Burnett Mary region, and the way that land is managed flows all the way to the Great Barrier Reef. Healthier soils and better-hydrated landscapes adapted to slow the flow mean more ground cover, less sediment runoff, stronger drought resilience and more productive businesses. EAG has helped producers adopt management practices for the greater good of the catchment whilst supporting their bottom line.
Graziers learn through three flagship courses — RCS Grazing for Profit, Tarwyn Park Natural Sequence Farming, and Nicole Masters' Soil Health Masterclass — then put the learning into practice with one-on-one property visits, natural capital assessments, mapping and follow-up support. The result is real, visible change: new fencing and paddock layouts, rested country, returning ground cover, and on-ground works like contours and leaky weirs that hold water in the landscape.
Follow-up property visits are in full swing, with field days continuing through 2026 and a closing field day in November 2026 bringing people together to connect, build more knowledge, inspire, share successes of the program and celebrate what the region has achieved together.
The Empowering Adaptive Graziers in the Burnett Mary, delivered by the Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG), is part of the $6 million Grazing Practice Change Program funded through the Queensland Government's Queensland Reef Water Quality program.