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Agricultural practices in Southern Burkina Faso, and Ziro province in particular, have undergone significant changes. These changes entail a reorganization of the peasantry into unequal socioeconomic categories and the development of agricultural entrepreneurship as a result of both local family farms and city dwellers investing increasingly in agriculture. The different types of agriculture, particularly entrepreneurial agriculture, redefine employment in the sector, its nature and purpose. This raises new and complex issues about the place of rural youth in agricultural employment. We propose here to analyse the paradoxical situation where those who have employment, i.e. agricultural entrepreneurs face reluctance from those (the youth) who claim they are looking for employment. In a situation where many youths are idle, this paradox is due to the qualitative dimension of the relationship between the supply and demand for agricultural employment in the villages of Ziro.