Thomas French

Thomas French is a 6th generation farmer from Woodstock, Virginia. Thomas works as the herd manager at French Brother’s Dairy, his family's 120 cow robotic dairy. While the dairy is his bread and butter, the family has many other diverse farming operations that he plays a role in, such as direct to consumer meat sales, a cow/calf beef operation, crops, and a broiler poultry operation. He is extremely passionate about agriculture, which is shown by his involvement in numerous agricultural organizations such as Virginia Farm Bureau and Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association (MDVA). Thomas was named MDVA’s Outstanding Young Cooperator in 2023 and was a member of Virginia Farm Bureau’s Young Farmer state committee for 4 years. Much of Thomas' time off farm is spent with his large family or as an avid college football fan.

“I’m excited to be a VALOR Class VII fellow. I feel that my time in the VALOR program will help me to develop confidence as a more decisive leader, and will help me advocate further for the agricultural industry; which has given me so many opportunities up to this point in my life. I hope that after VALOR I can step into greater leadership roles in both the agriculture industry and my community.”