DEERFIELD — With the Planning Board’s special permit approval this week, Savage Farms will construct a nearly 90,000-square-foot potato storage building for year-round protection of the family farm’s crops.

Savage Farms will construct the building, which will strictly be used for potato storage, on its farmland off Sand Gully Road North. The project will include ventilation and humidification elements for the storage of the potatoes, while creating little impact on the community, according to the project application.

“It will be very beneficial,” said Kathleen Bernardo, an attorney representing Savage Farms. “It’s necessary given that Mother Nature isn’t always kind.”

Jay Savage, of Savage Farms, said the building is necessary to protect the crops and comes at a time when the long-running family farm is growing to the point where it can’t ship potatoes straight off the field like in the past.

“Now that we’re at a sizable acreage, we can’t do that. It’s not as possible,” Savage said to the Planning Board. “Storage is more beneficial for us, so we can get our crops undercover, safe and out of the weather.”

While impact to the town is expected to be minimal, an abutter to the parcel asked about the access road to the proposed storage building and if she can expect to see an increase in truck traffic. The building is expected to be mostly disguised, too, as the field is at a higher elevation than the surrounding area and there are plenty of trees to act as buffers.

Savage said the farm has a right-of-way near the neighbor’s property that they are going to fix up. Slightly more truck traffic will be expected, although it will generally be spread out more because shipments will be taken out at different intervals.

“There will probably be a little bit more truck traffic, but basically all the truck traffic going to the farm is going by her house now,” Savage explained, adding that there’s typically a “tremendous amount of trucks” heading to the field each fall to get the potatoes off the field.

The Planning Board had few questions for Savage, as the Deerfield Fire District has already signed off on the application

“It seems pretty straightforward. It’s on ag land, it’s high up,” said Planning Board Chair Denise Mason. “Everything’s going to be pretty contained.”

With the board’s approval, Savage said the plan is to try to put the building up by the end of the summer, so potatoes can be stored in September.

“We’re really under the gun to get this thing built,” he said.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.