Meaningful Impacts: Amber Waves
January 16, 2026
By Yvette DeBow-Salsedo
As apprentices at Quail Hill Farm in 2008, Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow met in the fields and formed a friendship and business partnership that bloomed as Amber Waves Farm. Learning from poet-farmer Scott Chaskey (the director of Quail Hill Farm from 1990 to 2019), Katie and Amanda applied to an RFP issued by the Trust for the farmland behind what was the Amagansett Farmers Market for a new nonprofit farm based on three pillars: community supported agriculture (CSA), education, and the reintroduction of wheat production.
The land and market had recently been purchased by Maggie de Cuevas, who enlisted the help of the Trust to lease the farmland. Maggie sold both the farmland and the market property to Katie and Amanda in 2016. Since their 2009 inception, Amber Waves has grown to operate a rigorous farming apprenticeship program, a children's outdoor classroom and curriculum, fields open to the public, a year-round market and kitchen, and collaborative working relationships with local food pantries.
Learn more about Amber Waves Farm at www.AmberWavesFarm.org
Yvette DeBow-Salsedo
Vice President
ydebow@peconiclandtrust.org