Brazilian agricultural machinery manufacturer Jacto is deepening its focus on Africa as it looks to bring more advanced spraying and precision-agriculture technologies to a continent where agricultural production is expanding and machinery adoption remains uneven.
The company already has equipment available in African markets, ranging from tractor-mounted and trailed sprayers to self-propelled machines and portable equipment.
Its current African portfolio includes technologies such as MultiControl, automatic section control and GPS-based guidance, while Jacto has also been strengthening its presence in markets such as South Africa.
But Jacto’s ambitions go beyond selling existing equipment. Speaking to Agrimachinery Africa, Rodrigo Madeira, Product Planning Manager at Jacto, said Africa forms part of the company’s longer-term strategic outlook and will receive investment across several areas of agricultural mechanisation.
“Within Jacto’s strategic future process, we look at all potential agricultural markets from the perspective of expansion and technology adoption,” Madeira said.
“The African continent is one of these markets where Jacto will invest with technologies aimed at spraying, fertilization, planting, and harvesting.”
A market bigger than spraying
The comments point to a broader strategy in which spraying is one component of a much larger agricultural machinery opportunity.
Jacto is looking at Africa’s production systems from planting through harvesting, rather than treating crop protection as an isolated machinery market.
That approach matters because Africa’s mechanisation requirements vary considerably between regions, crops and farm sizes.
A cereal producer operating hundreds of hectares can have very different equipment requirements from a coffee grower, fruit producer or smaller commercial farmer.
Jacto says its strongest areas of agricultural focus on the continent currently include cereals, fruits and coffee. Madeira said the company is concentrating its technological investment on crops that are aligned with Africa’s potential for increased agricultural production.
“Jacto has been focusing on the African market in crops that are aligned with the continent’s growth in terms of agricultural production,” he said. “Cereals, fruits, and coffee have been Jacto’s main drivers in terms of technological investment on the continent.”
The shift towards precision spraying
For Jacto, modern spraying is increasingly about controlling exactly how and where crop-protection products are applied. The company is bringing technologies designed to improve application accuracy while reducing unnecessary use of agricultural inputs.
One example is nozzle-by-nozzle section control, which allows spraying to be controlled more precisely across the boom.
Jacto says the technology can reduce product use by up to 10%, although the actual saving will depend on field conditions, overlap, operating practices and other factors.
The principle is straightforward: rather than applying the same spray continuously across an entire field, the machine can selectively control sections as conditions change.
Jacto’s African product range already includes sprayers equipped with automatic section-control systems and GPS-based application guidance.
Related Articles
Inside Tanzania’s 10-Year Agricultural Mechanization Plan
Agricultural Mechanisation in Africa: Top 10 Most Mechanised Countries
South Africa’s Next Farm Machinery Cycle Will Be Driven by Intensification, Not More Land
Africa Doesn’t Lack Farmers Who Want Modern Equipment — It Lacks a Way to Finance Them
BalanceControl targets boom stability
Jacto is also placing greater emphasis on boom stability, an issue that directly affects spray quality.
Its new BalanceControl technology has been introduced on Uniport self-propelled sprayers and is designed to keep the boom operating more consistently over uneven terrain.
Jacto says the system can provide operational gains of up to 30% while improving spraying quality.
Independent coverage of the technology describes its purpose as maintaining a more uniform spraying height and reducing boom oscillations, helping improve application consistency.
Madeira has described the technology as part of Jacto’s wider effort to combine precision engineering with more efficient field operations.
For African farmers, the relevance is potentially significant because terrain, field conditions and the need to control input costs can all influence the performance of spraying operations.
The company is therefore moving the conversation beyond machine capacity. The objective is increasingly to make each spraying pass more precise, consistent and productive.
Technology for different farm sizes
One of the challenges of introducing advanced agricultural machinery into Africa is the diversity of the farming sector itself.
The continent contains smallholders, medium-sized commercial farms, plantations and highly mechanised large-scale operations, meaning that a single machinery solution cannot address every producer.
Jacto says it has technologies for small, medium and large producers. For smaller operations using tow-behind machines, the company points to MultiControl as a technology capable of improving spray control and application quality while reducing product consumption.
For larger machines, the technology becomes more sophisticated. Jacto says GNSS is integrated with spraying systems and vehicle control, allowing farmers to optimise spray inputs while also improving equipment and fuel efficiency.
This is already visible in Jacto’s African product portfolio. Its Advance 3000 AM18, for example, combines MultiControl with GPS guidance and an automatic section controller designed to minimise overlaps and improve agrochemical savings.
The dealer network behind the machines
Advanced equipment, however, is only useful if farmers can keep it operating. Spare parts, calibration, technical assistance, maintenance and operator knowledge become increasingly important as spraying systems incorporate electronics, GPS and precision-control technologies.
Jacto says its African dealer network is a central part of its strategy. According to Madeira, dealers provide spare parts and technical support and receive training designed to equip them to support the machinery being marketed in their respective markets.
“After-sales service is one of Jacto’s major focuses within the African continent,” Madeira said. “Our strategy is to have a dealer network trained and qualified for the equipment marketed in the African market.”
The company says dealer training is conducted both virtually and in person, with qualified professionals covering different aspects of the equipment.
That emphasis on training could become increasingly important as African farms adopt more sophisticated machinery and require technicians capable of diagnosing electronic and precision-agriculture systems.
South Africa provides a window into the strategy
Jacto’s activity in South Africa offers a visible example of how the company’s broader African strategy is being implemented.
In May 2026, the company announced its participation in NAMPO Harvest Day in Bothaville, showcasing spraying technologies and highlighting its local dealer network.
The company’s South African portfolio includes self-propelled spraying equipment, while its broader African catalogue includes machines designed for cereals, vegetables, sugarcane, livestock and other production systems.
This is important because it shows that Jacto’s African presence is not simply a future ambition.
The company already has machinery and dealer infrastructure operating in the market, while simultaneously looking to expand the technologies available to farmers.
Africa’s challenges are opportunities
The expansion of precision spraying in Africa faces familiar obstacles. Equipment cost, access to finance, technical skills, farmer awareness and dealer coverage can all affect how quickly new technologies are adopted.
Jacto, however, says it approaches these issues differently. Rather than viewing them simply as barriers, the company sees them as opportunities to understand farmers’ needs and develop solutions around actual production conditions.
“We always work with opportunities,” Madeira said. “Jacto wants to be on the African continent, bringing technology and knowledge to the agricultural sector; in this way, we see barriers as opportunities.”
He added that the company remains in contact with customers to understand their needs and ensure that solutions are aligned with individual production processes.
Developing technology specifically for Africa
Perhaps the most significant revelation from Jacto is that the company is not relying solely on machinery already developed for other markets.
Madeira confirmed that Jacto currently has product lines in development with solutions specifically intended for Africa.
The company did not disclose details of those products. Nevertheless, the announcement suggests that Africa is becoming more than an export destination within Jacto’s strategy and could increasingly influence the type of machinery and technology the company develops.
“Today we have product lines in development with specific solutions for the African continent,” Madeira said, “focusing on increasing our presence and helping farmers in food production.”
That statement could prove particularly significant as African agriculture becomes more commercialised.
Machinery designed around local crops, field conditions, farm structures and levels of mechanisation could help narrow the gap between imported equipment and the realities faced by farmers on the ground.
From Brazilian experience to African agriculture
Jacto’s approach reflects a wider opportunity for Brazilian agricultural machinery manufacturers in Africa.
Brazil has developed a large agricultural machinery ecosystem around commercial farming, tropical agriculture and the need to improve productivity across diverse production environments.
Africa presents a different agricultural landscape, but the underlying need is similar: farmers need to produce more efficiently while managing input costs and improving the productivity of scarce labour and land.
For spraying in particular, the next stage of mechanisation is unlikely to be defined simply by larger tanks or wider booms.
Precision application, automatic section control, guidance systems, boom stability and electronic spray management are becoming increasingly important components of modern machinery.
Jacto’s African strategy is therefore about more than putting Brazilian machines into African fields.
It is about bringing a package of machinery, precision technology, dealer training and after-sales support to a market that the company believes has significant long-term agricultural potential.
The road ahead
Jacto says it is continuously monitoring its dealer network and looking for ways to improve coverage and customer service. Where weaknesses emerge, the company evaluates whether additional training or expanded coverage is required.
At the same time, the company’s investment is expanding beyond spraying into fertilisation, planting and harvesting.
That could eventually give Jacto a much broader role in Africa’s agricultural mechanisation story.
For now, spraying provides one of the clearest examples of where that strategy is heading.
The combination of precision application, input efficiency, machine intelligence and stronger technical support points towards a future in which agricultural spraying becomes less about simply covering a field and more about managing every hectare with greater accuracy.
For Jacto, Africa is increasingly becoming part of that future.
And if the company’s Africa-specific products now in development deliver on their promise, the next chapter may be less about adapting Brazilian machinery for Africa and more about developing machinery with African agriculture specifically in mind.
Also Read
- Mwea’s Mechanisation Gap: Why Rice Transplanting Remains the Final Frontier
- Agricultural Mechanisation in Africa: Top 10 Most Mechanised Countries
- AGCO’s 2026 Farm Progress Lineup Shows Where Farm Machinery Is Heading: Autonomy, Retrofitting and Mixed-Fleet Technology
Martin is a writer at Agrimachinery Africa specializing in agricultural machinery, mechanization trends, and farm technology across Africa. His work focuses on tractors, harvesting equipment, irrigation systems, and emerging innovations helping farmers improve productivity and efficiency. Through in-depth industry coverage, he highlights technologies shaping the future of modern agriculture.