There appears to be a paradox in Ethiopia. On the one hand, the country’s development
policy emphasises the central role of the agricultural sector and the need of cultivating a new
generation of young, literate, and capable farmers who can embrace new technologies and
methods in order to transform the sector. On the other, this commitment on the side of the
state to ensure the majority of rural youth become the new generation of literate and capable
farmers appears to be counter to the aspirations of the majority of rural youth who are
aspiring to life outside of farming. However, the question of how and why education
influences the aspirations of rural youth and the implication of this to the future of farming in
relation to the country’s agricultural led industrialization policy have not been adequately
explored. Based on a qualitative study of four categories of rural youth (students in primary
school, students in high school, high school graduates and drop outs, and young farmers) this
study investigates the hopes, aspirations and imagined futures of rural youth in one farming
community in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.