36 ms·

Ask HN: SWE who started an organic farm in Europe, where did you go?

• Saphyel 4y ago
  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
• DeathArrow 4y ago
  The winning idea seems to be employed in SV and get SV salaries and then move to a farm in Europe and work remotely. This is easy to do if you are an US citizen. I wonder how us, poor Europeans, can do the same thing.
  • jonasdegendt 4y ago
    I'm in Belgium and a colleague of mine just bought a house and moved to Italy, near Bergamo whilst staying employed with us. I'm sure she's doing more than fine financially, even without a SV wage. So the trick's to be Western/Northern European, and move to Southern Europe. /s There's still plenty of remote opportunities with good pay in Europe that could sustain this kind of living.
    • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      Works out - because southern Europe has great weather!
  • whiplash451 4y ago
    How do you convince your SV-based company that the 9h time difference will be fine?
  • whiplash451 4y ago
    Easy until you try to open a bank account in a French bank with US citizenship. Good luck with that.
    • ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      www.bunq.com issues French IBANs.
  • moltar 4y ago
    Considering software developers in Portugal make €2K/mo and are still able to “survive” in the cities, I’m sure you don’t need a SV salary to live well in the rural area.
  • bogomipz 4y ago
    >"This is easy to do if you are an US citizen." Is it? Isn't there the issue that you can't just move to the EU as a US citizen unless you get hired by a European company which means no more SV salary.
• raptorraver 4y ago
  Wow, so inspiring stories here. 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.
• monsieurUK 4y ago
  I live on a countryside in England.
• baremetal 4y ago
  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. what do you want to know?
  • gravypod 4y ago
    What material did you study to learn how to build houses? Did you shadow someone else while they did it? Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or something?
    • baremetal 4y ago
      i went up to a jobsite and asked for a job. worked for a year doing that. made friends with a master carpenter i worked with and we teamed up to start the business.
      • bitcoinmoney 4y ago
        Do you mind sharing how much income you get from the business now? Just want to see how much opportunity there is
        • baremetal 4y ago
          Depends on how much i want to work. But around $50-60/hr.
          • deleted 4y ago
            [deleted]
    • baremetal 4y ago
      also larry haun videos (yt) and his book, the very efficient carpenter.
  • 4y ago
• ratsforhorses 4y ago
  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... https://youtu.be/VCBIyvYtMBI https://youtu.be/VCBIyvYtMBI
  • natly 4y ago
    I can't imagine most romanians are happy with their land being so cheap overall (and their economy not doing great) so I doubt most people living there would object to the local land prices going up (that's a good thing).
    • towaway15463 4y ago
      It’sa double edged sword, the average home price has doubled where I live but it’s also created a homelessness problem where it was non existent before. This seems to also have increased drug use and mental problems or at least exposed them on the public streets but probably both. When homes are cheap people can get by with very little, being poor is not so bad when you have a roof over your head and food and people around you. Now the pre are sleeping rough in the street or overcrowded in tiny apartments with no prospects of having their own home. I’m sure those who can invest in building and selling expensive houses are doing well though.
    • thfuran 4y ago
      Is there anywhere where most people are really glad that a bunch of foreigners are coming in and driving up the prices of necessities?
      • Iv 4y ago
        Rural Japan. I am moving out of it, and most rural communities are very aware of the fact that they are dying out. Houses are not only cheap, some are free. I have a friend who is living in a house just in exchange of cutting the grass there regularly (long story). Landlords have to pay for the cost of destruction if one house they own becomes abandoned. They are happy to have a tenant even for free if they fix things there and keep the place in a good shape. Schools are closing one after the other. The countryside is littered with abandoned schools. People there are despaired to see their cities shrink. When we arrived from Tokyo with a young kid, we were more than welcomed and locals helped us localize the best houses for us.
• tluyben2 4y ago
  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.
  • recvonline 4y ago
    Are you speaking the language? And was it hard to create or be part of the local community?
    • tluyben2 4y ago
      I am bad at natural languages, but I am Dutch so my television when I was young was English, German, French, Flemish and bad bad Dutch tv. So I have some advantage but communicating with a few words, English and hands and feet works fine with the locals. My wife learns languages very fast (she is also dutch but she learned Mandarin when we were working in china and was good with the locals when we left) so that helps, but the people mostly speak English and insist on speaking English to practice; these are 20-50 y/o Spanish, Portuguese and expats. It took about 2 years to be an integral part of the community in spain; Portugal took a few months and we don’t speak Portuguese yet because everyone understands English and with Spanish Portuguese is not hard to understand. But all communications are in English really.
      • DoingIsLearning 4y ago
        Without doxing yourself what region of Portugal are you in at the moment? Also if you have children, how are you finding the local education sys?
        • tluyben2 4y ago
          We moved more north for the rain; east of Porto. No children (by choice) so cannot say anything about that.
• exdsq 4y ago
  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.
  • hihihihi1234 4y ago
    Where in the UK do you think is a good place to do this kind of thing? My wife and I have been toying with the idea of doing something like this - it won't be for at least another few years, but it's still really just an idea at this point; neither of us have much experience in this sphere and we're not sure where to start. What do we need to know? Any resources you recommend we check out?
    • aakashsigdel 4y ago
      I am on the same boat as well. Toying with various ideas and want to do something similar here in the UK in few years. Would be great to see some resources on this
  • spacetraveler11 4y ago
    Same for me. Not sure yet where though. On my own I'd be free to chose anywhere but I've been playing around with the idea of doing it together with my cousin who is interested in this as well. When we were kids we would often times help our grandpa in his garden who was growing all kinds of vegetables and fruits there. I want to become like my grandpa and see my grandchildren playing on my land.
• ratsforhorses 4y ago
  I'd also like to throw you some links... https://elpocito.wordpress.com/ https://elpocito.wordpress.com/ Pfaf.org plants for a future Ic.org intentional communities 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"https://youtu.be/UfDTM4JxHl8 https://youtu.be/UfDTM4JxHl8
• thomaspaulmann 4y ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uwKTRv2ZDV0&t=2s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uwKTRv2ZDV0&t=2s
• morphle 4y ago
  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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Chris Stewart's "Driving Over Lemons" is a nice book describing the move into the country.
  • satellite2 4y ago
    Do you have a website?
    • morphle 4y ago
• bjelkeman-again 4y ago
  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: https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-part-1-start-and-prior-knowledge/ https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-par...
• tomrule007 4y ago
  If you want to get into farming I would suggest giving woofing (worldwide opportunities on organic farms) try first. 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. https://wwoof.net/ https://wwoof.net/
  • idealmedtech 4y ago
    There's a huge variety of experiences to be had while woofing, so make sure you prepare for the worst (tent sleeping, very little shower access, controlling hosts). Definitely talk to alums of whichever site you have in mind if possible!
    • formerkrogemp 4y ago
      I wouldn't recommend woofing. Or migrating on a farm worker visa. The power imbalance there has strong potential for abuse. Speaking to alums is a good idea.
      • justshowpost 4y ago
        Can affirm. Same with any volunteering opportunity. Turns out, most people value you less if you give away your time and energy for almost free, instead of value you more. For short times it might be fine, as the initial welcome may still balance some of that. But any longer term and you’ll likely feel an imbalance.
• blaydator 4y ago
  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 !
  • edmcnulty101 4y ago
    Were you American and immigrated?
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • SnowHill9902 4y ago
      >>France ! He’s definitely French.
      • gojomo 4y ago
        Is a space-before-exclamation-point a Frenchism?
        • me_bx 4y ago
          Yes. Question marks, exclamation marks, colons and semicolons take a space character before. More details: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/should-you-ever-put-a-space-before-a-period https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/should-y...
          • edmcnulty101 4y ago
            Thanks for the info. Had no idea!
• hkt 4y ago
  Not exactly a farm, in the UK you can get allotments for virtually nothing (£50 a year 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!
  • aakashsigdel 4y ago
    I am toying with various ideas and want to do something similar here in the UK in few years. Would be great if you could share some resources on this?
    • hkt 4y ago
      Yes! For allotments, the RHS and the NSALG are the places to go, they have information on growing, allotment etiquette, seasonal produce etc: https://www.nsalg.org.uk/ https://www.nsalg.org.uk/ https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/beginners-guide/allotment-basics https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/beginners-guide/allotment-basi... As for permaculture, I follow this magazine, which is worth every penny: https://permaculture.co.uk/ https://permaculture.co.uk/ And as for finding an allotment, there's a handy gov.uk service that will tell you which local authority to get in touch with: https://www.gov.uk/apply-allotment https://www.gov.uk/apply-allotment Most allotment sites have a waiting list, but there's always some turnover as people lose interest (or in some cases, die of old age!).
• chews 4y ago
  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. Full time farming while amazingly fun and fulfilling is really hard physical work. When I came back to engineering a lot had changed quickly. Took years to “catch up” and overall it was a struggle to return. Glad I took the wine away though.
• Mathkr 4y ago
  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.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• bkovacev 4y ago
  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.
• oxff 4y ago
  You can find more of these types around the Urbit thing.
  • asymmetric 4y ago
    Any specific links?
• robcohen 4y ago
  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. 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
  • bitcoinmoney 4y ago
    How did you find the land?
    • robcohen 4y ago
      Redfin actually. I lucked out in my opinion. If I were to search for land again, I would just talk to people and make connections. Go to local government meetings (council, etc). Community group meetings too. Ask around, tell people you are trying to start a farm. If you're lucky you can find someone and skip the realtor entirely and just get a lawyer.
• gdubs 4y ago
  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. I still do iOS development professionally — but now fully remote from the farm. 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. Anyone interested can follow the Instagram account we set up to share updates of what we’re up to: https://Instagram.com/cleryfarm https://Instagram.com/cleryfarm
• fxfm 4y ago
  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!
• dathos 4y ago
  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.
• solomonb 4y ago
  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. It is really nice to be able to take a break from coding, step outside, and turn the compost.
• azemetre 4y ago
  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: https://syntax.fm/show/466/supper-club-coding-burnout-and-gardening-with-anselm-hannemann https://syntax.fm/show/466/supper-club-coding-burnout-and-ga...
• jelliclesfarm 4y ago
  I am working on a project that is basically a 100+ acre farm that is collectively owned and will be mostly(eventually fully) automated. 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. 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. 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. 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.
  • LunaSea 4y ago
    Most (even large scale) farms aren't automated due to the difficulty in doing so and doing it for a reasonable price as well. I would probably look at different ways to design the various gardens and fields in a smart way so as to limit work rather than automate it.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Dylanfm 4y ago
  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.
• monodeldiablo 4y ago
  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. 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. 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. 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.
• sdevonoes 4y ago
  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.
  • raptorraver 4y ago
    Well the darkness isn't going away any time soon. You can definitely do farming here. Summers are short but very intense as the days are very long here in north. Here's some inspiration from Sweden: https://youtu.be/J_htLIUKX1Y https://youtu.be/J_htLIUKX1Y
  • hkon 4y ago
    We have farms in Scandinavia. No problem. And if you don't go too far north, it's only about 3 months that are really dark and cold.
  • bitcoinmoney 4y ago
    What does being North Africa or Southern Europe mean?
• medion 4y ago
  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.
  • bogomipz 4y ago
    That sounds nice. What city were you in? Where did you end up that's rural and near the ocean? Also how did you wean yourself off of tech work?
    • medion 4y ago
      The details are neither here nor there. It was possible to ween off tech because the cost of living was significantly less than city living. It's not so much rent/food, it's all the ancillary costs of city living that add up. All the pointless restaurants, time with friends that aren't really your friends, many coffees a day, takeout, useless gadgets, the list goes on. I split my time across multiple different fields, each earning a bit each, which adds up.
• eelcow 4y ago
  Awesome to see more devs getting into this. 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. 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. 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.
• theremotetribe 4y ago
  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. 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.... If interested, send me an email and I will send you an invitation : theremotetribe@gmail.com About myself, engineer, former developper and now I am a Tech recruiter. I work remotely. Gwenael
• klakierr 4y ago
  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) 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€