Chapter 8 Livelihood and Economy - Primary Activities

1. Chapter 8 Livelihood and Economy - Primary Activities Classification of Economic Activity Subsistence Agriculture Commercial Agriculture Other Primary Activities Trade in primary activities Economic Geography - study of how people earn their living, how livelihood systems vary by area, and how economic activities are spatially interrelated and linked

2. Classification of Economic Activities & Economics • Factors - • Physical environment and cultural considerations • Exploit resources dependent upon technology • Political decisions • economic factors of demand • Categories of Activity • Quinary Activities • Executive Decision Maker • Quaternary Activities • Info/Research/Management • Tertiary Activities • Retail & Wholesale/Personal & Prof. services Transportation & Comm. • Secondary Activities • Manufacturing/Processing/Construction/Power Production • Primary Activities • Agriculture/Gathering/Extractive Industries

3. Types of Economic systems Subsistence Economy goods/services for the use of producers/family • very few people are members of only one type of economic system • Commercial Economy • producers market goods/services, • supply-demand/competition • Planned Economy • government controlled/decided prices • Systems subject to change - market/globalization • Transportation is a key variable • Isolation restrict the access to outside world (fig 8.4)

4. Primary Activities: Agriculture • Def. : growing crops and tending livestock, for sale or subsistence. (8.5 - growing season) • 10% of the total earth land is for crop farming. • Declining trend in agriculture employment in developing countries (8.6) • Developed - 8% in most of W. Europe, < 3% in the US. • Agriculture is still the major components in developing countries (8.7)

5. Subsistence Agriculture • Involves nearly total self-sufficiency on the part of its members. No exchange (or minimal, if any). food for themselves only. • No knowledge of soil chemistry, fertilizing, or irrigation, once the soil become infertile, they move to another parcel of land, clear the vegetation, turn the soil and try again. 150 to 200 million people in Africa, Middle America, tropical South America and parts of Southeast Asia. • In Africa, S and E Asia, Latin America • Two types • Extensive: large areas of land and minimal labor input per unit area. Production and pop density is low. • Intensive: cultivation of small landholdings through the expenditure of great amounts of labor per unit area. Production and pop density are both high. (8.8)

6. Extensive Subsistence Agriculture • Nomadic herding (8.8) - wandering and controlled movement of livestock dependent on natural forage - the most extensive type of land use system. • Sheep, goat, and camels are most common and others such as cattle, horses and yaks are important too. • Animal provides milk, cheese, meat for food; hair, wool and skins for clothing; skin for shelter and excrement for fuel. • Nomadic herding is declining. Social/economic/culture changes are causing nomadic groups to alter their ways of life or disappear entirely. • Shifting cultivation - rotating field once soil lose fertility. Swidden and slash-and-burn. (8.9)

7. Shifting cultivation/Slash-burn • Slash-and-burn : process of preparing low fertility soils for planting. Burning add minerals to the soils, in low level of population • Shifting - rotating the fields to keep soil fertile • After burning, plant crops such as maize (corn) millet (cereal grain), rice, manioc, yam, and sugarcane

8. Intertillage: practice of mixing different seeds and seedlings in the same swidden • To reduce the risk of disasters from crop failure, to increase the nutritional balance of the local diet, to prevent loss of soil moisture, control of soil erosion R:Rice G:Groundnut M:Maize Y:Yam WY:White yam AP:Air potato V:Bamara groundnut Cu:Melon Pp:Pumpkin L:Gourds