Coffee grinds, apple cores and curly orange carrot peels: straight to the trash they go in most households. But on Island farms, these food scraps (along with egg shells, wilted greens and watermelon seeds) go to the compost. For the farmers, this trash is treasure.

“It’s like crop insurance,” explained Jim Athearn of Morning Glory Farm last week as he stepped down from his tractor.

Julian Barbosa was raised on a farm where he learned to cook with vegetables grown in his backyard. When he moved to Martha’s Vineyard four years ago, he continued cooking, both at home and later at Zephrus Restaurant in Vineyard Haven where he is the sous chef.

The seeds are planted and the first hay harvested. Across the Island, farms are full of activity and, just as their farmers are busy with animals and crops, farming advocates are working tirelessly to protect the agricultural tradition here.

Despite all this hard work, there is little to no coordination of agricultural activities on Island.