What are the distinguishing characteristics of the economic systems labeled subsistence, commercial, planned, and transitional? Are they mutually exclusive, or can they coexist within a single political unit?
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Introduction to
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Mark Bjelland, David Kaplan,
Jon Malinowski, Arthur Getis
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Economic
Geography:
Agriculture and
Primary Activities
Chapter 9
Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.
Overview
• The Classification of
Economic Activity and
Economies.
• Primary Activities:
Agriculture.
• Other Primary Activities.
• Trade in Primary
Products.
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© Malcolm Fife/Getty Images RF
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Economic Geography
The study of how people earn their living, how
livelihood systems vary by area, and how economic
activities are spatially interrelated and linked
Livelihood patterns are influenced by
• Physical environment.
• Cultural considerations.
• Level of technological development.
• Political decisions.
• Economic factors of demand (market conditions).
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The Categories of Economic Activity
1. PRIMARY ACTIVITIES
• Agriculture.
• Gathering Industries.
• Extractive Industries.
3. TERTIARY (SERVICE) ACTIVITIES
Wholesale and Retail Trade.
Transportation and Communication
Services.
Business Services.
• Finance, Insurance, Real Estate.
2. SECONDARY
ACTIVITIES
• Accounting, Advertising, Architecture,
Engineering, Legal Services.
• Manufacturing.
Consumer Services.
• Processing.
• Eating and Drinking Establishments.
Personal Services, Tourism.
• Construction.
• Power Production.
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Education, Fire Protection, Health Care,
Nonprofit Organizations, Police.
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Classification of Economic Activity and
Economies: Categories of Activity (1)
Primary activities
Harvest or extract something from the earth.
• Hunting and gathering, grazing, agriculture, fishing,
forestry, mining.
Secondary activities
Add value to materials by changing their form or combining
them into more useful and more valuable commodities (form
utility).
• Manufacturing and processing industries, power
generation, construction industry.
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Classification of Economic Activity and
Economies: Categories of Activity (2)
Tertiary activities
Provide services to the primary and secondary
sectors and goods and services to general
community and individuals.
• Professional, clerical, and personal services.
• Wholesale and retail trade.
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Classification of Economic Activity and
Economies: Types of Economic Systems (1)
National economies of the early 21st Century fall into three
major types:
Subsistence economies.
• Goods and services are created for the use of the
producers and their kinship groups.
• Little exchange of goods.
• Limited need for markets.
Market (commercial) economies.
• Goods and services distributed in competitive markets
where price and quantity are determined by supply and
demand forces.
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Supply, Demand, and Market Equilibrium
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Classification of Economic Activity and
Economies: Types of Economic Systems (2)
National economies of the early 21st Century fall into
three major types (continued):
Planned economies associated with communist-controlled
societies.
• Goods and services distributed through governmental
agencies that control both supply and price.
Few people are members of only one system,
although one system may be dominant.
Spatial patterns of economic systems are subject to
change.
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Classification of Economic Activity and
Economies: Stages of Development (1)
Disparities in economic and social conditions exist
across the world.
Development theory (1960s).
Progression from subsistence agriculture, low technology
levels, and poorly developed commercial exchanges through
“takeoff” stages of increasing investment in infrastructure
and human capital to industrial and, ultimately, postindustrial
status.
Other theories and models have been proposed.
• For Example, the “Big Push”.
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Per Capita Income (Purchasing Power
Parity), 2019
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Classification of Economic Activity and
Economies: Stages of Development (2)
Assessments of stages of development.
• Frequently criticized for Western Market economy biases.
• Per capita income.
• Allocation of labor force among the five categories of
economic activity (primary, secondary, etc.).
• Relative contribution of agriculture, industry, and services
to gross domestic product.
Importance of transportation to development.
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The Changing Sectoral Allocation of Labor
in the United States
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Patterns of Surface Transportation and
Accessibility
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Primary Activities: Agriculture (1)
Global food supplies are sufficient but unevenly
distributed.
• Number of undernourished people is over 1.0 billion.
• A 30 year trend of reduced global hunger was reversed
by economic crisis that began in 2007.
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© David T. Sandwell, 1995. Scripps institution of Oceanography
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Primary Activities: Agriculture (2)
Hunting and gathering
• Universal forms of primary production before farming.
• Now practiced by only a small number of people and
declining in number.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture (3)
Agriculture
• The growing of crops and tending of livestock.
• Has replaced hunting and gathering as the most significant
primary activity.
• Employment in agriculture is steadily declining in
developing countries.
• In highly developed market economies direct employment
in agriculture involves only a fraction of the labor force.
• Agricultural continuum from subsistence to traditional
(intermediate) to advanced (modern) farm economies.
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Areas with Naturally Fertile Soils
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Primary Activities: Agriculture
Subsistence Agriculture (1)
Two chief types of subsistence agriculture:
Extensive subsistence agriculture.
• Large areas of land, minimal labor input per hectare.
• Product per land unit and population densities are low.
Intensive subsistence agriculture.
• Cultivation of small land holdings, great amounts of labor
per acre.
• Yields per unit area and population densities are both high.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture
Subsistence Agriculture (2)
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Extensive
Subsistence Agriculture (1)
Nomadic herding
• Wandering but controlled movement of livestock solely
dependent on natural forage.
• Most extensive type of land use system (requires
greatest amount of land area per person sustained).
• Animals provide a variety of products for food, clothing,
shelter and fuel.
• Nomadic movement is tied to sparse and seasonal
rainfall or cold temperatures as well as quality and
quantity of forage.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Extensive
Subsistence Agriculture (2)
Nomadic herding (continued)
Transhumance.
• Seasonal movement to exploit locally varying pasture
conditions.
On the decline.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Extensive
Subsistence Agriculture (3)
Shifting cultivation
• Warm wet tropical climates.
• Plots are cleared and burned, then cultivated until fertility is
lost, after which cropping shifts to a newly prepared site.
• “Swidden,” “slash-and-burn” .
• < 3% of world’s people engaged in this cultivation.
• Highly efficient cultural adaptation where land is abundant
in relation to population and levels of technology and
capital availability are low.
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Preparation of a Swidden Plot in Liberia,
Africa
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a: © Albert Swingle , b: © Albert Swingle
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Intensive
Subsistence Agriculture (1)
Involves about 25% of world’s
population.
Small-plot production of rice,
wheat, maize, millet, or pulses
Warm, moist districts of
monsoon Asia.
• Well-suited to rice production.
Cooler and drier portions of
Asia.
• Wheat, millet, upland rice.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Intensive
Subsistence Agriculture (2)
• Intensive use of fertilizers, mostly animal manure.
• Promise of high yields in good years.
• Polyculture is practiced for food security and
dietary custom.
• Urban agriculture is rapidly growing activity.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Expanding
Crop Production (1)
Two paths to increased
food production:
• Expand the land area
under cultivation.
• Increase crop yields from
existing farmlands.
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a : © Digital Vision/PunchStock RF
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Expanding
Crop Production (2)
Expand the land area
under cultivation
• Most of the area well
suited for farming is
already under
cultivation.
• Millions of hectares are
lost annually through
soil erosion, salinization,
desertification and
conversion of farmland
to urban, industrial and
transportation uses.
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U.S Bureau of Agricultural Economics: Agriculture Canada: Mexico, Secretaria de Agriculture y Recursos Hidraulicos
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Expanding
Crop Production (3)
Increase crop yields from existing farmlands
Key to growth of agricultural output in recent decades.
Two interrelated approaches:
• Production inputs have been increased.
• Water, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, labor.
• Green Revolution.
• Complex of seed and management improvements
adapted to the needs of intensive agriculture and
designed to bring larger harvests from a given area of
farmland.
• For Example, genetic improvements.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Expanding
Crop Production (4)
Green Revolution
High-input, high-yield agriculture.
Costs for Green Revolution successes.
• Commercial orientation and demands costly inputs.
• Displacement of traditional and subsistence agriculture.
• Loss of food security and nutritional diversity.
• Salinization and groundwater depletion.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Expanding
Crop Production (5)
Green Revolution (continued)
• Unequal spatial distribution of benefits.
• Gains are falling off in many geographic areas.
• Spread of genetically modified crops despite consumer
resistance.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (1)
Production controls
• Agriculture in developed economies characterized by
specialization, off-farm sale, interdependence of producers
and buyers.
• Contractual arrangements.
• Agribusiness.
• Governmental involvements.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (2)
Von Thünen’s model of agricultural location
One of earliest models developed to analyze human activity
patterns.
Developed in early 19th Century.
• When transportation systems were less efficient.
• Before governmental influences were the norm.
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von Thünen’s Model
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Dairying and market gardening.
Specialty farming.
Cash grain and livestock.
Mixed farming.
Extensive grain farming or stock raising.
a)
b)
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (3)
Von Thünen’s model of agricultural location
Land uses are a function of differing “rent” values that
reflect cost of overcoming distance to a market town.
• Land close to markets is used intensively in small units
for high-value crops.
• Land far from markets is used extensively in larger units
for low-value crops.
Von Thünen’s rings.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (4)
Intensification and consolidation of agriculture
Reduction in number of farms.
• Loss of “general farms”.
Enlargement in size of farms.
Exception – rise in number of small farms since 2002.
• Consumer desire for organic and local food.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (5)
Intensive commercial
agriculture
Production of crops that
give high yields and high
market value per unit of
land.
• Truck farming (fruits and
vegetables).
• Dairy farming.
• Livestock-grain farming.
• “Live-stock factory farms”.
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b: © Cathryn Dowd
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (6)
Extensive commercial
agriculture
Larger farm units on
cheaper land, farther
from market.
• Large-scale wheat
farming.
• Livestock ranching.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (7)
Special crops
Special circumstances, most often climatic, make some
places far from markets intensively developed agricultural
areas.
Mediterranean agriculture.
• Grapes, olives, oranges, figs, vegetables, etc.
Plantation crops.
• Large agricultural holding, frequently foreign-owned,
devoted to the production of one or two export crops.
• Typically in the tropics, along or near coasts for export.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture Commercial
Agriculture (8)
Sustainable Agriculture
• Negative effects of
industrialized agriculture.
Recent interest:
Sustainable agriculture
• Local markets; knowledge of.
• Depopulation of rural
areas.
• Smaller-size operations.
• Heavy inputs of fertilizers,
pesticides, herbicides.
• Farm diversification.
• Use of fossil fuels.
• Organic foods.
• Question: Ability to feed
growing population?
• Quality of food.
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Primary Activities: Agriculture
Commercial Agriculture (9)
Agriculture in planned economies
State and collective farms, agricultural communes.
In recent years, controls have been relaxed or abandoned in
most economies; however,
Traditional rural landscapes have been permanently altered
• Former Soviet Union.
• China.
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Other Primary Activities (1)
Gathering industries
• Fishing and forestry.
Extractive industries
• Mining and quarrying.
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Other Primary Activities (2)
Fishing
About 80% of annual fish harvest consumed by
humans, rest used for livestock feed or fertilizer.
Maximum sustainable yield exceeded in local
waters.
Fish supply comes from:
• Inland catch.
• Fish farming.
• Marine catch.
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Other Primary Activities (3)
Fishing
Commercial marine fishing.
• Concentrated in northern waters.
• Northeast Pacific Ocean.
• Northwest Atlantic Ocean.
• Overfishing.
• “Open seas”.
• Tragedy of the commons.
• Pollution of coastal waters.
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The Major Commercial Marine
Fisheries of the World
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Other Primary Activities (4)
Fishing
Aquaculture (fish farming).
• Means of increasing fish supply.
• Virtually all farmed fish are for human consumption.
• Disadvantages:
• Pollution from fish wastes, chemicals and drugs.
• Transference of disease to wild fish stocks.
• Depletion of wild fish stock to feed farmed fish.
• Genetic damage to wild fish stock.
• Fastest growing sector of world food economy.
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Other Primary Activities (5)
Forestry: Livelihoods based on forest resources are
spatially widespread and parts of both subsistence
and commercial economies.
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Other Primary Activities (6)
Mining and quarrying
Low-value minerals.
• Transportation costs play a major role in production
decisions.
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Other Primary Activities (7)
Mining and quarrying
Metallic minerals.
• Production decision is a balance of quantity available,
richness of the ore, distance to markets.
• Land acquisition and royalty costs are also considered.
• Even if all these conditions are favorable, production may
not occur if market conditions are unfavorable (metals
market is highly volatile).
• Production of low grade ore may be more profitable than
high grade ore.
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Trade in Primary Products
Traditional export patterns
• Raw materials from less-developed countries.
• Manufactured goods from more-developed countries.
Changing export patterns
Raw materials have decreased and manufactured goods
have increased in flows from developing states.
• Export of unprocessed goods is still significant.
Volatility of commodity prices
Trade inequalities
• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
• World Trade Organization (Doha Round talks).
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