Could the hottest job of the future be...farming? In the next decade, 1.2 billion people globally will age into the labor force, but there will not be enough existing jobs waiting for them. The world's population is expected to climb to 10 billion by 2050, creating a need for at least 60% more food production than we currently have. At the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings, the bank's President Ajay Banga announced a plan that attempts to tackle both while also creating more sustainable and climate-friendly agriculture. The World Bank is doubling financial commitments for agribusiness and farming, totaling $9 billion by 2030. GZERO's Tony Maciulis spoke to Shobha Shetty, Global Director of Agriculture and Food, about the short-term and long-term needs surrounding food production and distribution. "This is not your grandfather's agriculture," Shetty said in a Global Stage interview. "You have to professionalize the sector. And this is what we are doing through a number of our agricultural education projects." Technology and skilling, she explained, are necessary to create the agriculture jobs of the future while also addressing the acute needs of the hungry today.
More from Global Stage
Can we use AI to secure the world's digital future?
September 25, 2024
How do we ensure AI is safe, available to everyone, and enhancing productivity? It’s a big topic at this year’s UN General Assembly. That’s why GZERO’s Global Stage livestream brought together leading experts at the heart of the action for “Live from the United Nations: Securing our Digital Future,” an event produced in partnership between the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, or CRAF’d, and GZERO Media’s Global Stage series, sponsored by Microsoft.
Is the Europe-US rift leaving us all vulnerable?
February 16, 2025
As the tense and politically charged 2025 Munich Security Conference draws to a close, GZERO’s Global Stage series presents a conversation about strained relationships between the US and Europe, Ukraine's path ahead, and rising threats in cyberspace.
Mother-son podcasting duo take on quantum computing
July 16, 2026
Quantum computing is moving closer to real-world applications, but making the technology understandable remains a challenge.
The World Bank Group's Sangbu Kim on AI and job skills
July 15, 2026
More than half of Americans believe their job is vulnerable to AI. The data tells a more complicated and in some ways more hopeful story.
Can AI protect humanitarian aid?
July 15, 2026
Artificial intelligence is already helping humanitarian organizations identify people in need, improve supply chains, and deliver assistance more efficiently. But it also introduces new risks.
Yoshua Bengio: AI is moving faster than our ability to govern it
July 15, 2026
Artificial intelligence is advancing at an extraordinary pace, but are governments and society keeping up? In this interview from the 2026 AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, pioneering AI researcher Yoshua Bengio discusses why today's AI safety debate goes beyond technical questions to broader issues of governance, public understanding, and international cooperation.
See more
