If I harvest from my garden, and don't return an equal amount of nutrients, then I am robbing my garden. If I import nutrients into my garden from elsewhere, then I am turning somewhere else into a desert.
I might whine about the smoke from California wildfires, and dust from the Nevada desert. Both bring with them nutrients which enrich the soil here.
Iowa is sending us their soil in the form of corn and soybeans. The farmer's feed it to their cows, which gets distributed after digestion into our rivers, fields, and wildlands. The birds pick through the manure and bedding and spread the nutrients through the entire ecosystem. We irrigate with river water, which again spreads the nutrients all over our ecosystem.
Michigan sends us their soil in the form of cheese. California sends us their soil in the form of vegetables. Those both mostly end up in the sewer system, but the effluents from the sewer system end up on our yards, fields, and in the lakes, which again get widely spread through the ecosystem by wind, animals, and irrigation.
My gardening motto has always been "Don't throw away your wealth". What is my wealth? Minerals. Particularly, the phosphorous in bones, and the potassium in vegetables. Nitrogen can be scavenged from the air. I make a point of burying animal bones in my garden after a meal. Any random place is fine. I just make sure that is small enough, or deep enough to not cause problems during cultivation. My wealth includes urine, feces, and crop residues.
People say that corn robs the soil. My personal experience is that corn enriches the soil a lot! Because I do not allow people to haul off my corn stalks. They get returned to the soil right where they grew. They take a couple years to fully decompose, releasing nutrients and sheltering soil microbes the entire time. The soil under last year's corn crop tends to be the richest on my farm.
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