I used to be a network engineer and I found farming bloody complicated. You might be very surprised at the breadth of knowledge it takes to successfully farm today.
I think that really depends on both the IT role as well as the type and scale of farm. If someone has a really stressful workplace in IT but makes enough money to buy a farm and semi-retire, it could just be that having the farm supplements their food and doesn't need to turn a profit. It's very different to, say, a subsistence farmer or one who has to make a lot to pay for mortgage, retirement, etc.
Honestly when I imagine someone in IT getting into farming, I imagine this. It's really an acreage with a garden and some animals, but they call it a farm, and aren't really interested in the actual farms.
That, or they do a hipster-bespoke-organic goat farm, which lasts a few years before they run it into the ground because they're expecting it to be easy or work like IT. To anyone reading this, I would urge you to explore a significant but less radical change first - there's plenty of jobs not like coding.
I don't know about that, but it's not a "free lunch" and it's not the same as just looking at pretty scenery.
From a North American perspective, besides the absurd entry cost, it seems fairly similar to a being a long-haul truck driver or plumber. Simple, repetitive work that doesn't follow any predictable schedule. Physical arduousness depends on what you're growing and if you're going to hire scared brown people to do it for you.
You also get to live in an area that's close to nothing, surrounded by neighbors that think you're an elitist city prick and will never respect you.
Simple, repetitive work that doesn't follow any predictable schedule
I have multiple spreadsheets, have to monitor and adjust to a lot of different conditions, have to actively monitor pests and plant growth and react to those (and predict for the next year and be proactive), and a bunch of other stuff. Farming tends to very much follow a predictable schedule insofaras you know in any given season what you will be doing and what you need to be getting ready for.
I daydream about it. Sometimes* I curse the discovery of oil. Instead of herding goats I am debugging C++ template errors. Though I do love airconditioning.
* a lie, I never do :) though I do think about goat herding.