The Farm

In the millennia prior to the arrival of Dutch and English settlers in the mid-17th century, eastern Long Island was inhabited by the Shinnecock and Montaukett Tribes, who thrived as skilled whalers, fishermen, hunters, and farmers. European colonization displaced local native peoples from the hundreds of thousands of acres they once called home, ultimately leading to the complete loss of the Montaukett people and the relegation of the Shinnecock nation to a reservation that occupies only a small fraction of their ancestral lands. Amber Waves Farm acknowledges the exclusions and erasures of Indigenous peoples from food and farming, including the Montaukett and Shinnecock people, on whose unceded land our organization is located. We honor the native people who have stewarded this area for more than 10,000 years and seek to highlight the continuous history of agriculture that began with their work.

Amber Waves is fortunate to be part of Eastern Long Island’s diverse foodshed. Our coastal climate is tempered by the Atlantic, providing ideal conditions for a long growing season that stretches deep into autumn. We are located in zone 7b, where North and South Fork farmers, fishermen, and other producers take advantage of fertile soils and rich coastal waters to cultivate a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, grains, meat, seafood, honey, beer, wine, sea salt, and more. A variety of prime agricultural soil types create a mosaic across Long Island farm country; ours is primarily Bridgehampton Silt Loam: well drained, high in organic matter, and nearly rock-free. This high quality of soils has enabled hundreds of years of successful agricultural production on the East End, where farmers have specialized in a variety of traditional crops, from corn and potatoes, to cauliflower, to ducks, to tree nursery stock in the modern era.

Amber Waves achieved ownership of our nearly 10-acre homebase farmland in Amagansett in 2016 after eight years as tenants there. This land is encumbered by two conservation easements that protect the land as a working farm in perpetuity. Among these restrictions is an affirmative farming covenant (the land must not lay fallow), and a requirement that 80% of our production must be in food crops. We lease an additional three fields totaling 25 acres that have also been preserved for agriculture and are owned by Peconic Land Trust and East Hampton Town, respectively.