J-PAL, UM6P Partner to Launch Agriculture Lab in Morocco

Rabat – The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US is joining forces with the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) to launch the UM6P-J-PAL Agricultural Lab for Africa (UJALA).

According to a report from Trade Arabia, the partnership aims to spearhead the evaluation of policies and programs related to enhancing food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Based at the UM6P campus in Morocco, the lab will focus on designing and implementing impact evaluations with a particular focus on improving food security for small-scale farmers across the African continent.

UJALA’s mission is to fund research that examines agricultural technologies and practices tailored to increase small-scale farmers’ food security, productivity, and profitability, the report explains.

The initial financial support for the initiative comes from the OCP Foundation. UJALA will be led by MIT Sloan School of Business Professor Tavneet Suri, who also serves as the J-PAL Agriculture Sector Co-Chair.

The lab is set to focus on facilitating innovative research in collaboration with J-PAL’s network of economists.

This focus encompasses five key policy areas that include designing and delivering effective food and agricultural subsidies, assessing the value of fertilizer customization to crop needs and soil nutrients, and reducing low-income households’ reliance on imported food.

The lab’s work will also extend to alleviating farmers’ constraints to adopting and maintaining new agricultural technologies and practices, and connecting farmers to markets that sell at competitive prices.

The core objective of the evaluations is to identify and scale up successful programs that address these key policy areas, ultimately benefiting the region’s small-scale farmers.

Tavneet Suri, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Business and J-PAL Agriculture Sector Co-Chair, said welcomed the launch of the new lab.

This new facility will “further J-PAL’s agenda in agriculture by working with key private sector partners on the African continent to conduct rigorous research aimed at improving food security for small-scale farmers, scale successful programs, and broadly use evidence in decision-making,” Suri said.

Through this collaboration, J-PAL aims to address “gaps in the policy and research landscapes on topics critical to food security for low-income individuals across sub-Saharan Africa,” she added.

For his part, Hicham El Habti, President of UM6P, expressed the university’s excitement about the partnership, saying that the UM6P-J-PAL Agricultural Lab “represents an opportunity for us to work jointly, through the various UM6P entities, to reinforce the agricultural sector and improve food security in sub-Saharan Africa.”