At a glance…
- Megan Bowden and her partner Andrew transformed their eight-acre Queensland farm into a regenerative farming and education venture.
- Their Dragon Eggs program brings the experience of egg hatching and farm life into schools, childcare centres and workplaces.
- A $7000 Agrifutures Rural Women’s Acceleration Grant helped Megan develop the program, which now teaches children about animals, sustainability, gardening and food production.
“When I first applied for the Agrifutures Women’s Acceleration Grant, I couldn’t have imagined that, one day, I’d not only be a grant recipient, but I’d be talking about it to The Australian Women’s Weekly.” Farmer and educator, Megan Bowden, is chatting with The Weekly from a paddock beside the henhouse on Dragon Fields, her regenerative Queensland farm.
Megan had 20 years of business experience behind her – many of them in the education sector – and her partner, Andrew, was training to be an early childhood educator when their lives changed forever.
“We decided we wanted to be farmers,” she says with a contagious smile.
“We came to farming with a very open mind. We just wanted to grow good food for people. And what evolved is a shift to natural practices and sustainability and all those things that just came as second nature to us.”
On eight acres of floodplain, just outside Ipswich, they practise permaculture and sustainable farming, grow produce, raise chickens, ducks and pigs, and grow plants to harvest organic and heirloom seeds. “We’ve learnt so much about the land,” Megan adds.
Then they decided they wanted to take their farming venture a step further. “And we ended up back full-circle in education,” she explains.
‘Dragon Eggs’ is an educational program that delivers hands-on egg-hatching experiences to childcare centres, workplaces and schools. Megan and Andrew developed the project as far as they could on their own, and then Megan applied for an Agrifutures Rural Women’s Acceleration Grant. The grant provides seven rural Australian women per year with a learning and development bursary of up to $7,000 for professional and project development.
Megan’s application was successful in 2025, and with her bursary, she has been able to bring Dragon Eggs to life.
“We provide interactive learning through our hatchling packages, which include everything needed to observe the fascinating process of egg hatching,” she explains. “We supply an incubator with six eggs ready to hatch, a brooder box with three chicks or ducklings, and all the necessary supplies for the week. Additionally, participants can watch the farm’s live feed to stay connected with the animals.”
Megan also goes into the schools and centres to chat with the youngsters about farm life and to introduce them to real-life sustainability with hands-on projects like sewing from recycled fabric scraps; seedling, planting and gardening activities; pickling and fermenting food and drinks.
The children love it and, Megan says, “the program also builds community. Parents and teachers become involved, following the hatching process and purchasing farm-fresh eggs and chicks from the farm.”
Megan is just one of the many inspiring rural women who have taken the next step in their life and work on the land with an Agrifutures Rural Women’s Acceleration Grant.
Applications for the 2027 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award open on Wednesday, 9 September 2026.
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