Deerfield Soil Health Plan

Town of Deerfield Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program, 2022

The overall goal of this project was to identify the most impactful actions and strategies that the community of Deerfield, Massachusetts can implement to steward its soils in ways that support the myriad of co-benefits and beneficial functions of healthy ecosystems including enhanced carbon sequestration and storage, greater fertility, and improved water dynamics.

Over the course of a year, Regenerative Design Group led a process that included high-resolution modeling of Deerfield’s current healthy soil resources; presentations, workshops, and conversations with stakeholders with a special focus on farmers considering the town’s large agricultural community; soil sampling across a variety of land types providing the basis for future soil health tracking; a “soil health field day” for 120 high school students; and the development of several recommendations for potential bylaw improvements aimed at protecting and improving soil resources.

This project was completed in 2022 as part of a larger Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness action in the town of Deerfield, MA. Regenerative Design Group (RDG) worked closely with Chris Curtis (Conservation Works) who was the lead planner for the larger MVP project and who was the lead author of the sample bylaws included in our report. The consultants reported directly to Deerfield’s Climate Change and Energy Committee in carrying out the work of the project. The project was recognized in 2022 by the Massachusetts chapter of the American Planning Association with its Sustainability & Resilience Award.