Study Guide
Objectives for Chapter 8
After reading and studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Define and give examples of the five categories of economic activity.
2. Define agriculture.
3. Explain and give examples of intensive, extensive, and urban subsistence farming.
4. Explain what is meant by the Green Revolution and discuss its successes and failures.
5. Explain von Thunen's model.
6. Differentiate between intensive and extensive commercial agriculture using specific examples.
7. Define plantation and give modern examples.
8. Define natural resources and differentiate between renewable and nonrenewable resources.
9. Discuss the state of the world's fishing and forestry industries.
10. Compare and contrast metallic and nonmetallic mineral extraction.
CHAPTER 8: LIVELIHOOD AND ECONOMY: PRIMARY ACTIVITIES
OVERVIEW
1. Economic geography examines spatial patterns of livelihood systems and of the production,
distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Those patterns reflect differing physical
potentials and cultural considerations, including technological levels, political decisions, and
other societal variables.
2. Economic activity may be classified by stages of production or service marked by increasing
distance from physical environmental bases. Primary activities harvest or extract natural
resources; secondary industries add value to primary materials by providing form utility through
processing and manufacturing; tertiary activities connect producer and consumer through
wholesale and retail trade and provide general and special personal and professional services.
Quaternary implies services involving producing, processing, and disseminating information and
administering enterprises. The highest-level decision–makers are quinary workers.
3. Three major types of economic systems may be recognized: (1) subsistence, where goods
and services produced are consumed by the family of the producer; (2) commercial, where
production is for the competitive market; and (3) planned, where production amounts and prices
are administratively controlled. Most national economies involve some mixture of these, though
with cultural convergence more of the world's countries have adopted more advanced
technologies and become less purely subsistence.
4. Agriculture—crop production and livestock rearing—is the most widespread primary activity,
occurring wherever environmental conditions permit. Subsistence agriculture implies nearly total
self-sufficiency. Nomadic herding and shifting (swidden) cultivation are extensive subsistence
agriculture variants, the former involving large land and low capital and labor inputs, the latter
relatively high labor inputs in rotating small-plot cultivation. Intensive subsistence farming
features very large labor and fertilizer inputs on permanent small plots.
5. Population pressures have caused the extension of agriculture onto marginal areas, with
often serious environmental deterioration. The Green Revolution—aimed at increasing yields
rather than increasing farmed area—has expanded grain production through new plant
varieties, fertilization, herbicides, and other management techniques. The Boserup Thesis
investigates the relationship between population growth and the type of agricultural production.
6. Agriculture in advanced economies features specialization, off-farm sales, and reliance on
free or controlled markets. The von Thünen agricultural land use model helps explain crop
patterns by reference to costs of transportation and production. Truck farms and livestock-grain
farming are forms of intensive commercial agriculture. Extensive commercial cropping includes
large-scale wheat farms and livestock ranching. Plantation and Mediterranean farming are
special forms of commercial cropping.
7. Forestry, fishing, mining, and quarrying are other forms of primary economic activity. Their
development depends on the occurrence of perceived resources and the technology to exploit
them. Both renewable and nonrenewable resources are subject to overuse.
8. Fishing is a major world source of animal protein. Overfishing and fish stock depletion are
expressions of the tragedy of the commons. Exploitation to destruction also threatens large
areas of woodland and commercial forest, including the tropical rain forest.
9. Mining and drilling for nonrenewable mineral wealth defines extractive industries. Mineral
resources are unevenly distributed in deposits of dissimilar size and quality. Extraction and
transportation costs, technologies, and market demand dictate their exploitation. The mineral
fuels—especially petroleum—are particularly important in modern economies and in patterns of
world trade. The amount of economically recoverable reserves fluctuates upwards and
downwards based on their price and cost of extraction.
10. Primary commodities as a group make up a declining share of total international trade but
remain dominant in the economies of many of the world’s poorer countries. Commodity prices
are volatile; their fluctuations can seriously impede the economic development and endanger
the monetary health of developing countries dependent upon their production and export.
EXPANDED KEY WORDS LIST
agriculture
extensive subsistence
aquaculture
agriculture
intensive subsistence
beneficiation
extractive industry
agriculture
Boserup thesis
FAO
land race
cartel
fertilizer minerals
land rent
collective farm
form utility
large-scale wheat
commercial economy
gathering industry
farming
commercial forests
genetically modified
livestock-grain farming
coniferous
grade
livestock ranching
continental shelf
Green Revolution
manufacturing
cross pollination
gross domestic product
marine catch
cultural consideration
hunting and gathering
market economy
deindustrialization
identified reserve
maximum sustainable
development
industry
yield
economic geography
inland catch
extensive commercial
intensive commercial
Mediterranean
agriculture
agriculture
agriculture
metallic mineral
mineral fuel
shifting cultivation
natural resource
slash-and-burn
nomadic herding
cultivation
nonmetallic minerals
smelting
nonrenewable
resource
specialization
off farm sale
open seas
overfishing
physical environment
state farm
subeconomic reserve
subsistence economy
swidden
planned economy
technological
development
plantation
technology
polyculture
tertiary activity
precious stones
trade activity
primary activity
traditional economy
processing industry
tragedy of the
commons
proved reserves
quaternary activity
quinary activity
renewable resource
reserves
resource
roundwood
secondary activity
seed banks
semiprecious stones
service activity
transhumance
transport gradient
truck farming
UNCTAD
usable reserve
von Thünen model
von Thünen rings
WTO
Key Word
Economic
geography
Primary activity
Secondary
activity
Tertiary activity
technology
Commercial
economy
Market
economy
Planned
economy
Quarternary
activity
Quinary
activity
Subsistence
economy
agriculture
Intensive
Agriculture
Extensive
agriculture
Definition
Explain with examples
Nomadic
herding
Shifting
cultivation
Boserup Thesis
Green
Revolution
Von Thunen
Model
Truck farm
Plantation
resource
Natural
resource
Renewable
resource
Non-renewable
Resource
Extractive
Industry
Gathering
Industry
Maximum
sustainable
Yield
Tragedy of the
Commons
Aqua-culture
Useable
reserves
Discussion Questions (From Fellmann, 270):
Practice quizzes available at:
https://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073522856/student_view0/chapter8/quiz.html
Very Cool quizzes and review games at quizlet:
http://quizlet.com/10378682/human-geo-chapter-8-fellmann-flash-cards/
For further reading:
“Miracle Rice”
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/crops_17.html
Loss of Crop Diversity
http://www.gmo-journal.com/2011/06/17/loss-of-biodiversity-and-genetically-modified-crops/
1.
What are the distinguishing characteristics of the economic systems labeled subsistence,
commercial and planned? Are they mutually exclusive, or can they coexist within a single
political unit? Give areal examples.
2.
What are some of the ecological consequences of the different forms of extensive subsistence
land use? In what world regions are such systems found? What, in your opinion, are the
prospects for these land uses and for the way of life they embody?
3.
How is intensive subsistence agriculture distinguished from extensive subsistence cropping?
Why, in your opinion, have such different land-use forms developed in different areas of the
warm, moist tropics?
4. a) Describe the Boserup thesis.
b) Do you think it is a valid model for predicting the shift you described in “a” above?
c) What other factors might bring about such a shift?
5.
Briefly summarize the assumptions and dictates of von Thunen’s agricultural model. How might
the land use patterns predicted by the model be altered by:
a) an increase in the market price of a single crop?
b) A decrease in the transportation costs of one crop but not of all crops?
6. What is the basic distinction between a renewable and non-renewable resource? Under what
circumstances might the distinction between the two be blurred, or obliterated? Can you
provide an example of such a situation today in the U.S?
7. a) What economic and ecological problems can you cite that do or might affect the viability and
productivity of the gathering industries of forestry and fishing?
b) What is meant by the tragedy of the commons? How is that concept related to the problems
you discerned in “a” above?
8. Mineral fuels
a. What are the mineral fuels?
b. Why have the mineral fuels been so important in economic development?
c. What are the prospects for their continued availability?
d. What economic, environmental and social consequences might you anticipate if the
price of mineral fuels should i) double? ii) be cut in half?