Farmland may be disappearing from Western Pennsylvania, but some property owners are bucking the trend.

Greg and Kim Serakowski of Plum, for example, guarantee that their 36 acres off Elicker Road is preserved in perpetuity.

On Sept. 26, they greeted guests with custom-made ball caps and T-shirts to celebrate Serakowski Farms’ inclusion in the state Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, administered by the Department of Agriculture.

“I really want to thank you folks for getting into the program, because the goal of the department and the goal of conservation areas is to make sure that we do keep land and agricultural productivity, and keep it from becoming a strip mall or a housing project, or something like that,” Mark Critz, the department’s western regional director, said.

Serakowski Farms is the first in Allegheny County to be preserved under the program’s new “crops unique to the area” clause, which sets eligibility at a 10-acre minimum.

“Before, we had to have 50 acres and larger to preserve a farm,” Heather Manzo, Allegheny County Conservation District executive director, said. “That’s not a reality in a quantity we’d like in southwestern PA. We have a lot of small, diverse operations.”

The Serakowskis’ distinctive crop is spelt, a type of grain related to wheat, barley and rye. According to Greg, they are ready to start planting what should amount to about 16 acres.

“It’s actually, protein-wise, better than oats,” he said.

Spelt serves as feed for the farm’s main product, beef cattle. The Serakowskis report a brisk business that picked up substantially during the pandemic, and they now have a loyal base of customers, including a pair of affiliated South Side restaurants they supply with 400 pounds of ground beef each week.

The business aspect is a prime consideration for the conservation program, according to Critz.

“It’s not just about preserving the land,” he said. “It’s about making sure that the farmer and the operation is profitable, and you can do the things that you want.”

Since the program’s 1988 inception — the Serakowskis happened to buy their property that year — 6,266 farms across Pennsylvania received approval for easement purchases totaling almost 630,000 acres, Critz said. That adds up to nearly 985 square miles, or 240 more than the size of Allegheny County.

And since 2002, the Allegheny County Conservation District and affiliated Allegheny County Agriculture Lands Preservation Board have used their resources to preserve more than 4,000 acres of farmland, an area larger than North Park and Boyce Park combined.

District agricultural resource conservationist Madeleine Sheinfeld worked with the Serakowskis on navigating the various facets of adding their property to the list.

“You can be an example and show other farmers that there are now options to really protect the viability of your farmland, even if you’re working with a slightly smaller operation,” Sheinfeld said. “In this county, especially, smaller operations are really kind of the backbone of the agricultural economy.”

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