Chapter 8
Livelihood & Economy:
Primary Activities
Economic geography
– Study of how people support themselves,
with the spatial patterns of production,
distribution, and consumption of goods &
services, and with the areal variation of
economic activities over the surface of the
earth.
– To understand we
use types of activities
& organization to
understand patterns
Categories of activities
• 1. Primary activities –
• resource extraction or gathering
• 2. Secondary activities –
• value added to resources
• 3. Tertiary activities –
• provide services to primary, secondary sections, general
community, to individuals
• 4. Quaternary activities –
• processing & dissemination of
information/administration/control of enterprises
• 5. Quinary activities –
• high-level decision-making roles in large organization,
public/private sphere
These five sectors are linked and integrated
by transportation & communication.
National economies: 3 types
• 1. Subsistence
• Goods & services created for use of producers & kinship
groups
• 2. Commercial
• Free market, supply & demand
• 3. Planned
• Goods & services were controlled by government
agencies (collapsed, yet landscape & cultural ideologies
remain)
• All intermix – usually one is dominant
• The key variable is transportation
Patterns of access & isolation –
white indicates areas within 20 miles of railroads,
Motor transport, or water navigation.
Primary activities
• Involves the gathering or extracting
natural resources
• Hunter & gather groups
• Two primary activity groups:
– Agriculture
– Resource
exploitation
Subsistence agriculture
• Near total self-sufficiency –
predominant occupation of mankind
today
• 2 types:
•Extensive
•Intensive
Extensive subsistence
agriculture
• Represents a very small % of world
population
• 2 groups:
– Nomadic herding
– Shifting cultivation
Nomadic herding
• Wandering, but controlled movement of
livestock
• Solely dependent upon natural forage
• Dry & cold regions
• Requires large expanses of land
• Transhumance
• Small % worldwide
Shifting cultivation
• nomadic farming - swidden agriculture,
slash & burn
• Located in warm, moist, lowlands
• Involves about 5% of world’s
population
• Renewable strategy if:
•population is low
•non-renewable when population
is growing
Intensive subsistence
agriculture
• Involves approximately 50% of the world’s
population
• Some exchange between subsistence &
commercial
• Warm, moist climates (primarily in monsoon
regions), fertile soils, river valleys, deltas
• Large labor requirements, small plots of land,
intensive use of fertilizers, often double
cropped
Intensive farming continued
• Urban subsistence farming /garden plots
– Increasing phenomenon worldwide
– Most prevalent in Asia
– Both private and commercial use
– Significant food source in cities
– Converts waste products
to fertilizers, but can
spread disease
Green revolution – 1950s to 2000
• “high-input, high-yield” concept
– Characteristics & requirements:
–
–
–
–
–
Genetically improved seeds
Irrigation
Mechanization
Fertilization
Pesticide application
– Outcome:
– Food production increase, yet growing population
– Environmental, cultural, economic impacts
Impacts
•Irrigation problems
•Seed genetics
•Displaced traditional farmers
•Production gains dropping
•Population growth uncontrolled
Commercial Agriculture
• Characteristics:
– 1. Specialization
– 2. Off-farm sales
(not subsistence farming)
– 3. Interdependence of
producers & buyers
through linked markets
– Agribusiness
Variables for profit
• Uncertainties:
– 1. Physical nature of farm land – weather
– 2. Costs of production
– 3. Uncertainties of growing conditions &
total volume output
– 4. Supply & demand
Solution to uncertainties
• Contractual agreements
• Uniform product quality, timing of
delivery
• Guaranteed market & price
• Agribusiness, the merging of:
•1. Production
•2. Processing
•3. Marketing
von Thünen’s Model – 1783 -1850
•increasing distance from city = low-value crops,
extensive land use
•near city = high-value crops, intensive land use
•can be affected by: topography, soil fertility,
changes in market
Intensive commercial agr.
• High yields, high market value
• Highly perishable
• Limited field size, repeat plantings
Extensive commercial agr
• Farther from market, cheaper land
• Large land size required
• Dry farming / livestock ranching
• Low labor requirements
• Marginal land quality
Livestock ranching
& special crop
agriculture
Principal wheat-growing
areas of the world
Resources – primary activity
• Two classifications:
– Gathering industries
•Harvesting of renewable resources
– Extractive industries
•Removal of non-renewable minerals
Natural resources
• Naturally occurring materials that
humans view as necessary/useful for its
economic/material well-being
– Renewable
•maximum sustainable yield
– Non-renewable
• Humans have a changing view of
resources
Fishing
• Primary, renewable resource
• 75% of world catch = human consumption
• 1 billion people rely upon this resource
• 25% = processed fish meal for
livestock/fertilizers
• One of the most
dangerous industries
– U.S.: 86 deaths per
100,000
Fish supplies
• 120 million tons harvested worldwide
• Maximum sustainable yield is exceeded
• Sources:
– 1. Inland catch
– 2. Fish farming
– 3. Marine catch
Overfishing & problems
• Collapse of certain species
• Problems:
– 1. Effect of El Nino
– 2. Pollution of inland & coastal waters
– 3. Destruction of mangrove forests, coastal
wetlands, estuaries, shallow continental
shelf areas
Tragedy of the Commons
• Accepted view that world’s oceans are
common property – open to all
• No one is responsible for its maintenance,
protection, improvement – no collective
controls
• Each user - exploits resource to maximum
– otherwise someone else will do so
Results
• 1982 – United Nations Convention on
the “Law of the Sea” treaty
•Gave control of 200 nautical miles to nearest
country
• Increasing fish farming
•Aquaculture – both marine & freshwater
Forestry
• Primary, renewable resource
• 12,000 years ago forest covered 45% of earth
• Today = 30%
• Two large global belts of commercial forests:
– Upper-middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere
– Equatorial zones of South & Central America,
Central Africa, Southeast Asia
• One of the most dangerous industries
– U.S.: 92 deaths per 100,000, highest danger rate
Major commercial forest regions
Mid-latitude forests
• Largest, most continuous stand, extending
around the globe
– Boreal, temperate, 40°N to 70°N
• Northern region of forest
– Coniferous, softwoods
• Pine, spruce, fir
– Largest, most continuous stand, low diversity
– Construction uses, lumber, pulp
• Southern region of forest
– Deciduous hardwoods
• Oak, maple, hickory, birch
– Greatly reduced
Condition today
• Both regions threatened by:
– Acid rain, atmospheric pollution, over
harvesting, invasive species
• Areas held constant through:
– Conservation, preservation/protection,
reforestation
Tropical lowland forests
• South & Central America, Central Africa,
Southeast Asia
– Mahogany, teak
– Biodiversity, heavy forests can restrict ease
of extraction
– Primarily located in the developing world
• Primarily exploited for:
– Fuel, charcoal, and increasingly for lumber
Problems & threats
• Northern forests:
– 45% is for industrial use
• Southern forests:
– 55% is for fuelwood/charcoal use
• Forest depletion =
– Loss of a renewable resource
– Conversion to agricultural lands – marginalized
– Economic/ecological implications
Fur trapping & trade
• Ancient practice, dependent on northern
forests
• 1960s – anti-fur campaigns began & continue
• Farmed furs = today, 85% of industry
– Northern forest belt
– Increasingly challenged for inhumane treatment of
animals
– Public banning of fur products
Mining & quarrying
• Primary, non-renewable resources
– Distribution is uneven, determined by past
geologic events
• Extraction is possible with technology
– First –most accessible, highest quality
– Second – lower-grade quality ore
• Requires higher energy consumption for extraction
– Deeper in earth
– Lower grade
– Smaller deposits
Mineral resources
• Non-renewable resource
– 1. Proven resources
– 2. Known reserves
– 3. Potential reserves
• Mining & mineral extraction: one of the
three top most dangerous industries
Metallic minerals
• Copper, lead, iron ore
• Most abundant locations:
– Russia, Canada, China, United States, Brazil,
Australia
• Production is balanced by:
• 1. Quantity available
• 2. Richness of ore
• 3. Distance to markets
• Dynamic market results in varying interests in
deposits
Non-metallic minerals
• Common: sand/gravel, gypsum,
limestone, building stone
• Two types of usage:
– Construction use (ingredients for cement)
•Widest distribution, greatest use, least longdistance movement
– Fertilizer use (potash, phosphate)
•Unequal distribution
•International trade higher market value
Mineral fuels
• Fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, natural gas
– Made industrial revolution possible
– Non-renewable
Coal
• Coal: earliest usage, most plentiful
– Largest reserves
• United States, China, Northern Hemisphere
– open-pit (surface mining)
• Very damaging to environment – cutting off of entire
hilltops
• relatively cheap extraction costs
– shaft mining
• expensive, more dangerous
– Very polluting – slag heaps, ecosystem destruction
– Bulky to move
Petroleum
• 75% of proven reserves in just 7 countries
• Usage boomed in 20th century
• Costs & effects:
•Cheaper & easier to move than coal
•Polluting – global warming
•Reserves are diminishing
•Due to distribution & lack of availability – market
value fluctuations, politically sensitive
Natural gas
• 25% of global energy consumption
• Popular due to:
– Highly efficient, versatile
– Requires little processing
– Environmentally safe
• Problems:
– Uneven distribution
– Difficult to move
• Pipeline, good, but transoceanic, difficult at best
– Limited supply