Interested in stories of (ex-) software engineers who started a different life and run now a farm (maybe just on the side).<p>Which place did you seek out and why?
Near Albi, Tarn, France, (1h from) Toulouse. Working remotely as a SWE. Balancing between two extremes, growing veggies and coding. Had to install a 4g antennas works like a charm. Countryside in France is cheap, not to remote (5min from bakery, market, college), 15min from coworking Space (once a week to see friends), friendly neighbors, living my dream. Move here 2 years ago with my wife and new born. We made friends, bought a farm with 2ha. My quality of life is amazing. Please ama if inspired or investigating France !
British "Ben Fogle New Lives in the Wild" and Dutch "Floortje naar het einde van de wereld" are over 100 documentairies on this theme. A few of them where programmers who quit their jobs and started a small homestead farm or go to the wilderness and hunt. The majority are young families going for sustainable living.
Another large group buys rural houses, fixes them up and rents them out as B&B rooms. They also have their own documentairies.
The latest group are youtubers who document their move into the country.
The lessons from these examples are that almost no one could earn a living from the farming. They all had problems with local laws. They all have unfixable infrastructure problems, especially for remote working c.q. programming jobs.
Many had to break off when they became sick or went bankrupt. Its is very hard, so I started a business to help make the transition.<p>I am trying to make a business combining the two extremes. I sell rural or remote wilderness land with a high-tech solar off grid tiny house with very good internet for around $50.000. At any moment I have around 10 suitable plots of land on offer. The best are in nature reserves, the largest 100 acres.
It takes on average 24 months or more to find land, get permits, build the road, water, electricity and internet infrastructure and move the mobile tiny house onto the land. Spain, Portugal and Arizona mostly.<p>This is for programmers and other remote workers, retirees or people who can't afford a house in the city.
Since Covid there has been an large increase in people moving to remote rural locations. Most of them homestead, some take on the #vanlife.<p>A new trend will be permanent living in a mobile house, RV, bus, truck while working remotely. This only becomes affordable with Starlink and an electrical truck completely plated with solar panels. Water is purified onboard.<p>I expect the trend of going rural or mobile to increase even more in the next 10 years. I'm looking for cofounders to accommodate this increase in my business niche.<p>Asimov and Larry Niven wrote some science fiction stories before 1970 on this theme. When Star Trek transporters become possible, you could go live remotely on or inside a mountain or another planet.<p>Chris Stewart's "Driving Over Lemons" is a nice book describing the move into the country.
Rehabilitated an abandoned olive farm in Dalmatia, although all my income still comes from software consulting. 90% of the oil goes to family and friends.<p>Burned out on startup hours and the hamster wheel of tech and realized I was barely spending any time with my young family. I always wanted to help and learn how my in-laws made such incredible wine, olive oil, and cured meats.<p>My SO is Croatian, so the move itself wasn't that difficult. The culture shock was real, though, and developing fluency in a totally new language in my 30s was, in retrospect, a full time job that I badly underestimated.<p>The change in pace of life, horizon expansion, new relationships, learning adventures, and the pride in bottling my very own extra virgin, organic, hand-picked olive oil... Worth every struggle even at twice the cost.
If you want to get into farming I would suggest giving woofing (worldwide opportunities on organic farms) try first.<p>A directory of farmers that allow volunteers in exchange for room and board (that is the default but there is also plenty that also provide extras like small stipends and training). Little hard to do if you already have a family but great if you are single and want to see what farming is like.<p><a href="https://wwoof.net/" rel="nofollow">https://wwoof.net/</a>
I bought 15 acres near Mustang Ridge, TX which is close to Austin, TX. Obviously not Europe but I'll comment anyway. I bought land here because ag exemptions in TX are ridiculously beneficial. If you're regularly paying cap gains taxes you can write off a lot of expenses at a loss for the farm, including building roads, building a barn, utilities, animals, fencing, etc. The taxes are way lower with ag land, and I'm planning to build a small bunk house and hire someone for 30-40K/yr + free rent to manage the farm. Planning to have ~30 goats on the farm. I just haven't started operations yet because I'm working with an architect to put together a master farm plan.<p>I'll do this on the side so I can have a place to stay, food to eat, and a "base" to keep my stuff at. I'll keep traveling in the summers, keep doing software engineering. I'll also have RV spaces to rent out and also for WWOOFers
Not a professional farm but for our own food (as vegetarians); Spain first and now Portugal. Land is cheap and plentiful, a lot of stuff grows multiple times per year. Water is an issue which is why we moved to a wet part of Portugal. We grow all our fruit and veg etc and eggs organically. It would not be very hard or expensive to scale it up somewhat; my neighbours all make enough to live with larger plots of land. No idea how to do it on a large scale. Also I am still a software engineer but working less hours these days.
My wife and I bought a farm in the Pacific Northwest where we’ve placed over 12 acres of prairie and oak woodland into conservation with the help of the local Natural Resource Conservation Service. We’re in the process of applying for organic certification for 40 acres or agricultural fields that were conventionally farmed before we took over.<p>I still do iOS development professionally — but now fully remote from the farm.<p>Climate was our biggest consideration in choosing the region. I don’t know that any place will completely escape the challenges of climate change — fire is something we have to plan for an adapt to for instance.<p>Anyone interested can follow the Instagram account we set up to share updates of what we’re up to:<p><a href="https://Instagram.com/cleryfarm" rel="nofollow">https://Instagram.com/cleryfarm</a>
There's a guy who made it big in Silicon valley and bought 150 hectares near Cluj , north west Romania, he's built/building 28 houses with a school and afaik there's a agricultural component attached... curious if he's using ecological insulation (compressed sawdust, hemp, wool) or ecological plumbing, heating systems... seems a good intent but such initiatives have a tendency to push up local land prices :-( I have no idea how much his houses cost but since people have been going to Europe as "cheap" labour and especially since the banks have gotten involved in lending money for real estate purchases , prices have been going through the roof...
<a href="https://youtu.be/VCBIyvYtMBI" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/VCBIyvYtMBI</a>
I used to live in London, UK, but have started software companies/organisations in California, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and been deeply involved with a h/w and s/w startup in Bangalore. We started an company to build circular food production systems, based in Sweden. We have fish, vegetables and insects. It is on a farm, but we are not traditional farmers. You can read a build log here:<p><a href="https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-part-1-start-and-prior-knowledge/" rel="nofollow">https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-par...</a>
I was a software engineer for 13 years. I left the bay area and moved to idaho during covid. bought 20 acres of organic farmland with water rights. and i learned how to build houses in order to build my own house. now i have a business framing houses and a farm. im growing peas and barley this year.<p>what do you want to know?
Near Bordeaux in south west of France. Most important for me was be able to have at least 300m2 per person in garden to grow vegetables. We are 4 (2 parents, 2 children), so 1200m2 at least. Plus 500m2 for growing fruits, making an "edible forest". I choosed suburbs of Bordeaux because there is no hill, no mountain. To convince my family to mostly use bikes instead of cars, it's more easy. Another argument is its rainy but not that much.
Not exactly a farm, in the UK you can get allotments for virtually nothing (£50 a <i>year</i> for half an acre) which I do. I have a shed there I do computer work from, and do organic permaculture all over the plot, plus somewhere for the kids to sit and eat their sandwiches. I didn't have to seek anywhere out and strongly recommend it to anyone in the UK!
Moved to rural Australia 7 years ago, near the ocean on 1 hectare. Internet via p2p wireless. Recently purchased 6 hectares with better sun orientation to take things more seriously. Would never, ever go back to my previous city life. Weened off tech work over the years and am much happier, the internet isn’t the fun place it once was anymore.
Awesome to see more devs getting into this.<p>I grew up on the country side and I always dreamed of having a small homestead, with some animals and living a quiet life. I've been living a nomadic life for about 8 years when I decided it was time, 3 years ago. I found an old farm (5000m2) I could rent temporarily until I found my own place near my home in The Netherlands. It got out of hand pretty quickly with 30+ chickens, ducks, gees, a couple of pigs and goats. I was really loving it.<p>Unfortunately I didn't expect the pandemic to turn into a crazy frenzy where everybody seemed to flock to places where nobody wanted to live before. Rest to say my plan to buy something near my hometown failed for now.<p>Currently I'm in Galicia (Spain) looking to buy an old 1 to 2 hectare farm. The climate is great here, it's lush and green everywhere and there are affordable farms to find.
I am working on a project that is basically a 100+ acre farm that is collectively owned and will be mostly(eventually fully) automated.<p>It is the kind of farm that appeals for those who don’t want to wrestle with tractors, are nature lovers, not tech phobic and are ok with farming co-operatively.<p>Initial stages..so any input on what SWE/farmers really expect would be much appreciated. It would help me figure out what my future tech farmers would want and what they can tolerate.<p>The main focus is on automating enough so one person is able to handle 1-5 acres(0.5-2 hectares approx) without additional labour. And building a community so there is tool sharing and collectively sell as a co-op.<p>I have taken in inputs from mostly Americans. I don’t know if something like this will work elsewhere in the world. It’s certainly challenging in the USA…not least because of zoning and certain other issues. Especially in California.
I did a sabbatical in Lund Sweden, WOFd it, did it for two summer seasons and 1 winter crop. I needed time away from a hectic life.<p>Full time farming while amazingly fun and fulfilling is really hard physical work.<p>When I came back to engineering a lot had changed quickly. Took years to “catch up” and overall it was a struggle to return.<p>Glad I took the wine away though.
I'd also like to throw you some links...
<a href="https://elpocito.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow">https://elpocito.wordpress.com/</a><p>Pfaf.org plants for a future<p>Ic.org intentional communities<p>Basically "unproductive" land is/should be cheap, being out of the hustle and bustle of city life is great for clearing your mind, travel to a warmer climate (or snug it down) in the winter, consider it'll take you about a decade but your barren land can become a real cornucopia... There's a feel good film out there called "the biggest little farm"<a href="https://youtu.be/UfDTM4JxHl8" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/UfDTM4JxHl8</a>
The winning idea seems to be employed in SV and get SV salaries and then move to a farm in Europe and work remotely.<p>This is easy to do if you are an US citizen. I wonder how us, poor Europeans, can do the same thing.
This is my goal. I'm currently in the Bay Area but hope to move back to the UK and have a decent sized farm (maybe tickle my tech interests by focusing on hydroponics/aquaponics) to feed my family and then sell the extras at a local market. Currently 28, I think I'll aim to do this around my 40th birthday and see it as a pseudo-retirement.
About 5 years ago I was looking for a rural płot of land in southern Portugal (Algarve), but it was too expensive for me (I wasn't earning much back then though)<p>Now I'm starting to look again. Greece seems to have very cheap land, on various islands you could even get a płot for with a sea view for less than 50k€
Wow, so inspiring stories here.<p>We just bought (2 weeks ago) 7ha farm from southern Finland. We've been dreaming of it for 10 years but finally the time was right and a perfect place came along. We will move there in August. First season we are gonna just settle down and do some small scale homesteading (chickens, goats for milk and vegetables) but our plan is to start farming food for sale as well in the long run. Don't know if I'm ever able to drop from tech - not even sure if I want to - but plan is to do consulting (well, subcontracting) gigs during winters and focus on farming during summers. Let's see how it goes.
Hi All.
Me and my family have been living for 12 years in an old farm in south Brittany, France.
We produce some vegetables with 2 green houses (60sqm) and honey.
I have 7 beehives.<p>I am cofounder of an online community for software developpers interested in agro-ecology and resilience. It is called TheRemoteTribe.cp. We are on Slack.
We share tips for growing and cooking our products, tips to reach some self sufficency, hens, bees....<p>If interested, send me an email and I will send you an invitation : theremotetribe@gmail.com<p>About myself, engineer, former developper and now I am a Tech recruiter.
I work remotely.<p>Gwenael
Does anyone have experience with countryside in Italy (Tuscany specifically) or Spain? I'd love to move there in a few years and start producing wine on a smaller scale.
A tech podcast interviewed someone recently that does SWE and farming in Germany. Sounds exactly what you’re looking for, they ask him most of the questions you want answered:<p><a href="https://syntax.fm/show/466/supper-club-coding-burnout-and-gardening-with-anselm-hannemann" rel="nofollow">https://syntax.fm/show/466/supper-club-coding-burnout-and-ga...</a>
I am in the SF Bay Area (out there a bit) and have a large garden and budding orchard. We often have enough to sell / share and am interested in officially starting a farm, but am not clear on the process and whether this makes financial sense. I would appreciate any pointers to information on the business and tax side of a small, home-based farm in California in particular. Thanks!
North coast of Scotland, as far north as you can go on the mainland. Dark winters and long summer daylight. Didn't move here to start a farm (moved for the surf), but started a small market garden as a side-project a couple years ago. Also developing software for running a market garden, good to be my own user.
Should one buy a farm in southern europe or in scandinavia? To me it seems that in 40 years southern europe will be like north africa while scandinavia will be like southern europe. But right now scandinavia seems to me like 7 or 8 months of darkness (and cold)... so not that good for farming? I don't know.
Not exactly a farm but I have a half acre property on the edge of Los Angeles where I have substantial gardens. I have a food forest, a bunch of raised beds for annuals, a greenhouse, and an extensive compost operation.<p>It is really nice to be able to take a break from coding, step outside, and turn the compost.
We recently bought a finca with about 2ha in Spain. We’re fixing up the house, since it was basically 4 walls and a roof, and already eating from our garden and fruit trees.
My retirement plan was make my own farm in Tabarca, Spain. so I'm pretty much away of everything and if I want to see people I can get a boat to Alicante