Emiko Terazono in London, Benjamin Parkin in New Delhi and Nic Fildes in Sydney:
From little wild orchids to the sound of warblers, nothing much gets past Jake Fiennes as he surveys a strip of wild flowers that borders a field of spring barley on the 25,000-acre Holkham estate in the east of England, where he is conservation manager.
Creating such buffer zones, known as “hay meadows”, around a field reduces its acreage, but boosts its biodiversity and improves the quality of the underlying soil. A smaller field might mean less crop, but with fewer input costs and a small uptick in yields, it also means more profits, he says.
The system of land management practised by Fiennes, and a number of like-minded farmers, is about “bringing farming and nature closer” he says. His methods fall under the wider umbrella of the regenerative agriculture movement, which aims to restore natural ecosystems that have been depleted by traditional farming methods — and, ultimately, to produce food in a more sustainable way. “Food that’s produced working with nature rather than working against it,” as Fiennes puts it.