Chapter 8 Economic Geography: Primary Activities

8.1 The Classification of Economic Activity and Economies

• Production patterns are rooted in the spatially variable circumstances of the physical environment
• Unequal distribution of petroleum and mineral deposits make some regions wealthy and some dependent
• Forestry and fishing need other natural resources that are unequal in occurrence
  • Type
  • Value
• Complex environmental and cultural realities control the economic activities of humans
• Cultural considerations may shape economic decisions
• Culturally based food preferences rather than environmental limitations may dictate the choice of crops or livestock
• Production is controlled by economic factors of demand, whether that demand is expressed
• Preindustrial societies have no knowledge of or need the resources below for hunting, gathering, or gardening grounds
  • Iron ore
  • Coal
  • Petroleum
  • Uranium
• Level of technological development of culture will affect its recognition of resources or its ability to exploit them
• You can categorize the world’s productive work by viewing their economic activity
  • Primary Activity
  • Harvesting or extracting something from the Earth
  • Secondary Activity
  • They add value to materials by changing their form or combining them into more useful products
  • Tertiary Activity
  • Provide services to the primary and secondary sectors and goods and services to businesses and to individuals
  • Wholesale
  • Retail trade
  • Quaternary Activity
  • Service activities involving research, information, and administration
• Worlds most advanced economies are now largely post-industrial information economies
• Subsistence economy
  • Goods and services are created for the use of the producers
• Market (commercial) economies
  • Making buyers and sellers transacting everyday business
• Planned economies
  • Investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place while following economic and production plans

8.2 Primary Activities: Agriculture

• 38% of the world’s population depended on agriculture, hunting, fishing, and forestry for their livelihoods
• Supplies for humankind’s basic concerns can be acquired directly, through hunting, gathering, farming, or fishing, or indirectly, through performance of other primary, secondary, or service sector endeavors
• Increasing population would exceed food supplies
• Annual food supplies are more than sufficient to meet world needs
• 11% of the world’s population are inadequately supplied with food and nutrients
• Subsistence Agriculture
  • nearly total self-sufficiency on the part of its members
• Extensive Subsistence Agriculture
  • Large areas of land and minimal labor input per hectare
• Intensive Subsistence Agriculture
  • The cultivation of small landholdings through the expenditure of great amounts of labor per acre
• Animals provide a variety of products
  • Milk, cheese, blood, and meat for food
  • Hair and wool for clothing
  • Skins for clothing and shelter
  • Excrement for fuel
• Economic, social, and cultural changes are causing nomadic groups to change their way of life or to disappear entirely
• Urban Subsistence Farming
  • Around 800 million city farmers worldwide are part of an urban subsistence farming
  • Urban food production reduced adult and child malnutrition in a lot of cities
• Expanding Crop Production
  • There are two paths to promote increased food production
  • Expand the land area under cultivation
  • Increase crop yields from existing farmlands
• Intensification and The Green Revolution
  • The key to agricultural production for the past few decades has been increased productivity of existed cropland rather than the expansion of the area
  • World grain yields rose nearly 140 percent between 1960-2009
• Commercial Agriculture
  • Growing food to sell it as a business venture
  • Opposite of subsistence agriculture
• A Model of Agricultural Location
  • Johann Heinrich von Thünen observed that uniformly fertile areas of farmland were used differently in the early 19th Century when the governmental influences were the normal
• Intensive Commercial Agriculture
  • Has both plants and animals
  • Industrial agriculture
  • Crops that give a lot of profit and high yield
• Extensive Commercial Agriculture
  • Large wheat farms
  • Animal ranching
  • Way of cropping with minimal amounts of labour
  • Produces lower yield per unit
• Special Crops
  • Mediterranean Agriculture
  • Specialized farming economy
  • Known for fruits and vegetables
  • Plantation Agriculture
  • Foreign
    • Investments
    • Management
  • Marketing to indigenous
    • Culture
    • Economy
  • Employing nonnatives to produce crops for foreign markets
• Sustainable Agriculture
  • Main point of this type of agriculture is to
  • provide enough food for everyone
  • prevent poverty
  • enhance social, ecological, economic, and individual health

8.3 Primary Activities: Resource Exploitation

• Resource Terminology
  • Resources or natural resources are the naturally occurring materials that society perceives to be useful to its economic and material well-being
• Fishing
  • Fish and shellfish account for just 17 percent of all human consumption of animal protein
  • The annual fish supply comes from three sources:
  • The inland catch; ponds, lakes, and rivers
  • Fish farming (or aquaculture)
  • The marine catch
• Forestry
  • the world’s forests and woodlands probably covered some 45 percent of the Earth’s land area before the rise of agriculture
  • With forestry, you can:
  • Managing
  • Planting
  • Repairing
  • Constructing
  • Economic uses
  • Social uses
  • Ecological
• Mining and Quarry
  • Extracting natural resources and minerals from the earth
  • Provides non-renewable resources
  • Minerals can be used for social, economic, ecological, and recreational purposes
• Non-Metallic Minerals:
  • Minerals that do not contain metals of industrial interest as part of their composition
  • Non-metallic mineral reserves consist of quarries of stone, clay and sand pits
• Fossil Fuels:
  • Are highly dense natural fuel such as coal and/or gas made from decomposing plants and animals
• Metals:
  • Usually hard material used to construct objects

8.4 Trade in Primary Products

• International trade expanded rapidly since the end of WW2 (Has increased more than 8 fold since 1980)
• Primary commodities contribute to the total dollar value of international flows
• The world distribution of supply and demand for primary commodities resulted in a colonial pattern of commodity flow (20th century)
• Reverse flow carried manufactured goods from industrialized states for sale to developing countries
• The two-way trade benefited the developed states
• Also gave less developed countries some capital to invest
• Trade flows have changed in modern days
• Raw materials decreased and manufactured goods increased
• Trade in unprocessed goods still remains dominant in the economic well-being of many third world countries
• Commodity prices are volatile
  • May rise sharply in periods of product shortage or international economic growth
• During the ’80s and ’90s, commodity price movements were downwards
• Prices for agricultural raw materials dropped 30 percent between 1975-2000
• Metals and minerals decreased by 40%
• 91 of the 141 developing countries rely on commodities for 60% of their export earnings
• Technology has provided advanced countries with vast materials that substitute ores and metals produced by developing states
• As world industrial economy expands, demand and prices for traditional raw materials remain low
• Prices paid for developing country commodities are low | prices charged for the manufactured goods offered in exchange tend to be high
• Some developing states placed restrictions on the export of unprocessed commodities to capture profit for themselves
• Some dc’s also encouraged domestic manufacturing to reduce imports and diversify exports
• In 1964 developing states promoted the establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
  • Expanded to 13 developing states
  • Continues to press for a new world economic order
• WTO (Established in 1995) was designed to reduce trade barriers and inequities
• WTO is ineffective on issues of importance to developing countries
  • Failure of the high-income countries to eliminate generous protections for their own agricultural and mineral industries
• At WTO meeting in 2001, developing countries argued for the elimination of agricultural subsidies and protectionist policies in the EU and US
• Negotiations continued through 2008
• Agriculture was the primary roadblock in the trade talks
• 2015 Nairobi package included agreements to eliminate export subsidies for agricultural products

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