Eight Chester County farms are among the 66 farms that have just been preserved from development through the Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation Board.

They are the 88.1-acre B.K. Campbell Inc. crop farm; a 92.7-acre crop and livestock operation owned by Gideon and Rose Marie Stoltzfus; a 70.5-acre crop and livestock operation owned by Nathan and Patricia Stoltzfus; a 50.4-acre crop farm owned by Kenneth B. Sellers Jr.; the 52.1-acre crop and livestock operation owned by Daniel and Rebecca Stoltzfus; the Derek Strine and Katherine Stewart farm, a 72.2-acre crop farm; a 68.2-acre crop farm owned by the Castaldi Family Limited Partnership; and the Eleanor Gawrys 32.3-acre crop farm.

In all, the preservation board safeguarded 6,293 acres when it met Oct. 16.  Since the state established the program in 1988, 500,079 acres on 4,704 farms have gone into preservation.

The state’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program identifies properties and slows the loss of prime farmland to non-agricultural uses. It enables state, county and local governments to purchase conservation easements, also called development rights, from owners of quality farmland.  Last fiscal year, Pennsylvania received $4.2 million in federal reimbursements.

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