In developed economies, the trace elements needed by agriculture can easily and relatively cheaply be provided by man if they are not being sourced from dust blowing from volcanoes and deserts. Usually only tiny amounts are needed. But, as noted in Jared Diamond's book "Collapse", more primitive societies attempting to farm lands not so benefiting suffered from large reductions in soil fertility once they had used up the soil's initial endowments of trace elements. Dust blown off deserts and volcanoes also affects the fertility of oceans, and here man has not so far been as successful in substituting for nature, as exhibited by some recent experiments in deliberate ocean fertilisation.

The effect of volcanoes does seem to depend upon exactly what type they are and at what latitude. Whilst some parts of the world find volcanic soils exceedingly naturally fertile, and are particularly sought after for growing coffee for example, the effect of volcanism in Iceland has been to kill off vegetation and allow soils to be blown away. Iceland's volcanoes are in general not of a common type.