UM6P-J-PAL Applied Lab for Agriculture (UJALA)

UM6P-J-PAL Applied Lab for Agriculture (UJALA) is a joint initiative between J-PAL and University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P), embedded within a private-sector company, OCP Nutricrops. Hosted at UM6P in Morocco, UJALA leverages OCP Nutricrops’ operational scale and ability to respond quickly to market changes to support the design, testing, and scaling of evidence-based agricultural solutions. UJALA funds research to rigorously evaluate agricultural technologies and practices aimed at improving the adoption of evidence-based solutions to support small-scale farmers’ productivity, profitability, food security, and environmental sustainability globally.

Small-scale farmers face a myriad of production decisions that they need to address throughout the agricultural cycle, such as whether to adopt a new seed variety, how much fertilizer to apply, which information sources to trust, how to pay for production investments, and where to sell their output for the highest possible price, among many others. With the rise of global food insecurity, resulting from changes in the global market, climate, and political-economic forces, understanding how to improve food systems is an essential step along the path to reducing poverty and securing livelihoods across the globe. In response to this growing uncertainty, clear policies and programs that support farmers to invest in higher-yielding, more profitable, and more innovative technologies are essential. Yet, many questions remain unanswered.

UJALA aims to generate rigorous evidence to answer critical questions related to these five research priorities:

1. Subsidy schemes to improve food security 
2. Reducing the reliance of low-income households on imported food 
3. Overcoming farmers’ constraints to technology adoption 
4. Improving access to input and output markets 
5. Fertilizer customization and small-scale farmer outcomes 

To achieve our goals, UJALA will: 

1. Identify programs with the potential to answer open questions related to agricultural technology adoption globally.
2. Promote collaboration between researchers and implementing partners across UJALA’s Embedded and Researcher-Led tracks (see Request for Proposals (RFP) section below).
3. Fund randomized evaluations to build an evidence base on strategies that increase small-scale farmers’ productivity, profitability, food security, and environmental sustainability. 
4. Summarize and synthesize available results to address and answer outstanding questions relevant to policy and practice. 
5. Disseminate the evidence to inform relevant agricultural development strategies across low- and middle-income countries worldwide.