Not enough software engineers converting to farming? Shocking.

If anything else, for me the main issue in France is the dearth of doctors in rural areas. So even the romantic idea of retiring in quaint village is predicated on not getting sick.

> Not enough software engineers converting to farming? Shocking.

I kinda have to disagree with this. Sure, there's not a lot of software engineers grabbing a hoe and moving to a quiet rural farming village. But oh boy is there a lot of money being a software engineer working on farming.

I'd have to say more software engineers are working in agriculture today than ever before - it's one of the reasons why the rural areas can shrink. State programs for mechanization and increasingly advanced and hyper-specific machines are allowing crops that were labour intensive just a decade ago to be done by a team of 2-4. We went apple picking last year and the field next to us was having its apples harvested by flying drones (which was a real "we're living in the future" moment for us) while a worker sat in a lawn chair nearby reading a book.

Then there's the pushes to remove transport costs and grow closer to the cities. All of our family's lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber come year round from greenhouses on the roof Walmarts, warehouses and other big block stores, just a few blocks away - https://montreal.lufa.com/en/farms. 100% "touch-free" automated greenhouses are being built and have entered full productivity - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITRts-KOkuM&t=44s. Cheap electricity and thousands of overbuilt (snow load) flat roofs are a good combination for city greenhouses. These "farms" employee directly and indirectly plenty of engineers of all kinds.

Farming continues to be automated. Farms continue to be bought up for way more than their worth (farmland in the U.K. goes for 100-200 times the rental value) as part of wealth concentration.

> So even the romantic idea of retiring in quaint village is predicated on not getting sick.

Grew up in a village. What you do is... drive to another village / town. There are always doctors to be found - and less queues than in big cities.

This. I'm originally from the UK, now in NL and the plan was to retire in France. Being close to a hospital is one requirement since some of these villages are over a hour away.

With that and climate change our plans might be changing

Just hire a large muscular guy from the banlieues to drive you around in your Maserati.