This article draws on research conducted in nine municipalities in Madagascar to analyse the profile of young farmers and how they gained access to land. Young people who gain access to land at a relatively early age have smaller overall land areas than their elders. They struggle to establish themselves based on inheritance alone and increasingly depend on real estate markets. Forced to rely on both family and the market – for share-cropping, renting or the purchase land –, they remain dependent on their families in all cases, since the market is highly structured and regulated by family relations.