The Villa story began as Exportos in 1989.

Exportos was established to supply off-patent crop protection products to the South African market. In 1994, the Exportos team realised the need of South African distributors (dealers) to source alternative, cost-effective sources of generic products. Concurrently, dealers who were affiliated to Ciba-Geigy expressed a desire to collectively purchase supplementary products.

The result was the formation of a company called Commodochem, in which the above dealerships had 80% shareholding, with Exportos taking a 20% share block. The next significant event in the history of Villa Crop Protection was the merger between Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz in 1996. This resulted in additional dealerships (ex Sandoz) joining the group and a name change from Commodochem to Travon.

Due to the restructuring of the Bayer distribution network, dealerships with a primary Bayer affiliation joined Travon in 1998, and the rapidly-growing entity then assumed the name Villa Crop Protection.

During the latter part of 2015 the companies in the Villa Crop Protection Group were merged into one entity (the “new” Villa). Immediately following, Land O’Lakes, Inc. assumed a 50 percent ownership stake in Villa Crop Protection. With the backing and support of Land O’Lakes, the restructured Villa is well positioned for further growth in the South African as well as the African market.