When couple Gerry O’Shea, 30, and Lucy Davidson, 27, decided to move to Italy from the UK, they didn’t expect to end up running a farm in the Mediterranean countryside.
In 2021, the couple, both PhD candidates, were living at O’Shea’s mother’s house outside London and teaching university students remotely. The aspiring academics wanted to buy a house, but couldn’t afford one with outdoor space in London.
Davidson told Business Insider that she wants a better quality of life and a lower cost of living, but also a warmer climate than she has in the UK.
They wanted flexibility in their careers
O’Shea said they could afford to buy a property in the Italian countryside without taking out a mortgage. “Academia is not a very stable profession, and certainly not a high-paying one,” he said. They wanted to buy a property with cash rather than take out a mortgage to give themselves more freedom in their careers.
When searching for property in Italy, the couple decided on the Marche region on the east coast because it was more affordable than other areas they were considering.
They found the farmhouse on the market for 200,000 euros (about $218,000) in May 2021. O’Shea told BI it was love at first sight on the 44-hectare farm with its olive groves and dilapidated farmhouse.
The farm had been on the market for 30 years, so the couple were able to shave €60,000 off the price – they had saved €80,000 and raised the rest by selling their campervan and taking out a loan from Mr O’Shea’s parents.
According to documents seen by BI, they bought the farm, including the farmhouse, for 140,000 euros (about $154,000) in October 2021. Mr O’Shea and Mr Davidson moved to Italy soon after.
They work on the farm alongside their studies.
The couple’s farmhouse was in disrepair and uninhabitable, they say. Courtesy of Lucy Davidson
The couple were recently approved for a €328,000 grant to support young farmers and plan to spend €250,000 to rebuild their farmhouse, which they say is structurally unsound.
While they wait for planning permission to rebuild the farmhouse, the couple told BI they are renting a nearby property for €300 a month. They juggle their tutoring jobs with working on the farm, working seven days a week most weeks.
O’Shea, who graduated from her doctorate in 2022, spends an hour or two every morning remotely tutoring university students in the UK. She makes about £1,500 a month from tutoring, or about $1,900. Davidson told BI that her food and utility bills are much lower than when she was in the UK.
After completing his private tutoring, he told BI he now spends six to eight hours a day extracting olive oil from olive trees and picking lavender to sell. In the first year, he drove the oil to the UK to sell at the market, but since then he has been sending it by sea.
“I love agriculture,” O’Shea said. “I think it’s a really challenging job, and for me it overlaps really well with my studies.”
Ms Davidson took an agriculture course this year and told BI she enjoyed learning how to farm alongside her PhD. “Doing something really manual and concrete was really appealing,” she said.
“When you’re working and you’re your own boss and doing what you love, of course it’s physically and mentally exhausting, but it’s not draining in the same way because you enjoy doing it,” she said.
Neither Davidson nor O’Shea earn a living from their agricultural business, and O’Shea is now tutoring students in the UK remotely to supplement his income.
They aim to make the farm’s produce their main source of income in a few years and, in the future, plan to run olive grove tours for tourists.
They have no regrets
The couple told BI that this lifestyle suits them better than working in the UK.
“Everyone I know who lives in London or big UK cities and has a traditional office job says their work has become much more unpleasant, much more depressing since Covid-19, with financial stress taking a lot of the fun out of it,” Davidson said.
Although there aren’t many young people in the Marche region, they make friends and feel a strong sense of community, she said.
“There wasn’t a day when I wanted to go back to London,” O’Shea said.
If you’ve moved across the country while working remotely and would like to share your story, email us at ehopkins@businessinsider.com.
