Pittsylvania County beef, poultry and tobacco producer Robert J. Mills Jr. of Callands was elected Nov. 29 to a fifth three-year term on the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation board of directors.

Elections of officers and directors were held during the VFBF 2023 Annual Meeting of Voting Delegates.

As a board member, Mills will represent Farm Bureau producer members in Campbell, Halifax and Pittsylvania counties.

He serves as chair of the VFBF Poultry Advisory Committee and vice chair of the VFBF Flue-Cured Tobacco Advisory Committee and is a member of the VFBF Livestock Advisory Committee.

Mills owns and operates Briar View Farms, which includes a pullet breeder operation that raises 34,000 birds annually for Perdue Farms and a 300-head cow-calf operation. He also grows conventional flue-cured, dark-fired and cigar wrapper tobacco, as well as organic flue-cured tobacco, corn, soybeans and wheat.

He is a past president of the Pittsylvania County Farm Bureau and previously served on that organization’s board of directors. He also previously served as president of the board of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Mills serves on the Virginia Tobacco Board and on the boards of the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association and Tobacco Associates Inc. He is past chair of the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Dean’s Advisory Council and a past member of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

Mills was named Swisher Sweets/Sunbelt Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year in 2017 and named to the 2020 Virginia Business magazine Virginia 500 list.

He and his wife, Cindy, have two sons, Logan and Holden.


With almost 135,000 members in 88 county Farm Bureaus, VFBF is Virginia’s largest farmers’ advocacy group. Farm Bureau is a non-governmental, nonpartisan, voluntary organization committed to supporting Virginia’s agriculture industry.

Contact Pam Wiley, vice president of communications, at 804-291-6315.