Primary Activities
Primary activities directly extract or produce from the earth: gathering, pastoralism, fishing, forestry, agriculture and mining. The exam tests classification, location factors and contrasts between subsistence and commercial systems.
Core rules
- Subsistence production is mainly for the family; commercial production is for sale.
- Intensive farming uses much labour or capital per hectare; extensive farming uses little per hectare over large areas.
- Shifting cultivation, nomadic herding, plantation agriculture, dairy farming, truck farming and mixed farming are distinct systems.
- Location is influenced by climate, soil, relief, market, transport, technology and government policy.
Worked example
A dairy unit and a wheat farm compete for land near a city. Milk is perishable and costly to transport, so the dairy locates closer to the market; wheat stores well and has lower transport cost relative to value, so it can be farther out. This is the logic of von Thünen's land-use rings, though refrigeration and roads modify real patterns.
Traps
Mining is primary even though it may be capital-intensive. Plantation agriculture is commercial, not subsistence. Do not use primitive as a technical category. Do not confuse intensive with extensive: intensive means high inputs per area, not a large area.