Intensive farming has all but destroyed England’s ancient woodlands and freshwater wetlands. On a farm in Lincolnshire a radical aristocrat hopes to show there’s money in protecting nature• The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to orderIn the silent countryside south of Grantham, three vast steel barns rattled in the breeze. Gathered in a loose circle beside them were 15 landowners, land agents and a couple of young investors; all expensively dressed men, many with a sceptical mien. It was June 2022, and Sir Charles Raymond Burrell, 10th Baronet, was explaining how the purchase of 1,525 bleak acres (617 hectares) of prairie fields of wheat and beans could revolutionise farming and nature conservation, not just in South Lincolnshire but across Britain and beyond.Burrell, known by everyone as Charlie, led the group on a walk from the barns beside the unlovable modern farmhouse, a red-brick behemoth with small windows like piggy eyes. We began by crossing a fie...