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Another Norfolk County farm family has made it to the calendar put out every year by one of the province's leading promoters of the agricultural sector.

Jim and Rob Judge, a father and son who run a large operation west of Simcoe that includes chickens, hogs, and cash crops, are featured in the 2012 Ontario Farm Animal Council calendar for the month of March.

They are seen standing together in a black-and-white photo in an alfalfa field near Ancaster leaning on a 1967 Ford mustang car.

It's the third time in the calendar's seven-year history that someone from Norfolk has been included.

The Judges were chosen because they have successfully brought in new technology to their operation and farm in "an environmentally friendly" way, said Kelly Daynard, spokesperson for the council.

The Judges, she said, are considered "leaders in the industry. Jim and Rob were recommended to us as a dynamic father and son team."

Jim Judge said that what makes his operation unique is not its size but rather its "multi-generational" aspect. He runs the farm with his son Rob, 40.

Judge has a number of grandchildren and said he hopes the farm will one day be passed on to them.

"Farming is not an easy profession," he explained. "You (don't want to) spend a lifetime building it up just to see it go away after one generation.

"To see it go to someone else, there's not as much satisfaction"

Jim Judge and his wife started out in 1975 when they bought a chicken operation on Highway 3 between Simcoe and Delhi and kept expanding over the years.

The operation really took off, Jim said, after his son Rob joined him in running the farm in the 1990s.

Today, the Judges own and rent land in a roughly 20-kilo-metre radius from the home farm stretching from Lake Erie to Windham Centre.

The farm council educates the public about farms and farmers. It puts on exhibits at fairs, including the Norfolk County Fair, and publishes promotional materials.

The calendar is meant to "introduce consumers to the people who put produce on their table 365 days a year," Daynard said.

About 4,500 copies are sent to politicians at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels and another 1,500 go to grocery stores, butcher shops, and the media.

"Everything we do tells the story of farmers and introduces the public to the people who grow the food," said Daynard.