Ethiopian agriculture is the focus of both local and international attention. Ethiopia has drafted a second Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) in the shape of a Plan for Accelerated and Sustainable Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) and is in the process of presenting it to the House of People’s Representative for approval (Ethiopian Herald, Jan 14, 2006). The new document has intensified the debate on agriculture both locally and internationally. The key question is how debates about growth and poverty reduction relate to agriculture. This paper will take the case of the new PRSP document for Ethiopia to explore tensions, trade-offs, and policy controversies. It is structured as follows. Section 2 explores the narrative of the new Ethiopian PRSP (PASDEP) comparing it with the old PRSP known as Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Programme (SDPRP). Section 3 is about the different pathways for agricultural development as envisaged in PASDEP, and also explored previous policy research. Section 4 examines the linkage between PASDEP and other policies – current and past. Section 5 highlights opportunities and challenges for implementing PASDEP, and finally a summary and conclusion is provided in Section 6.