Livelihood

1
Chapter 8

• Livelihood Economy
• Primary Activities

2
Economic geography

• Study of how people support themselves, with the
  spatial patterns of production, distribution, and
  consumption of goods services, and with the
  areal variation of economic activities over the
  surface of the earth.
• To understand we
  use types of activities
  
  organization to
  understand patterns

3
Categories of activities

• 1. Primary activities
• resource extraction or gathering
• 2. Secondary activities
• value added to resources
• 3. Tertiary activities
• provide services to primary, secondary sections,
  general community, to individuals
• 4. Quaternary activities
• processing dissemination of information/administ
  ration/control of enterprises
• 5. Quinary activities
• high-level decision-making roles in large
  organization, public/private sphere

4
These five sectors are linked and integrated by
transportation communication.
5
National economies 3 types

• 1. Subsistence
• Goods services created for use of producers
  kinship groups
• 2. Commercial
• Free market, supply demand
• 3. Planned
• Goods services were controlled by government
  agencies (collapsed, yet landscape cultural
  ideologies remain)
• All intermix usually one is dominant
• The key variable is transportation

6
Patterns of access isolation white indicates
areas within 20 miles of railroads, Motor
transport, or water navigation.
7
Primary activities

• Involves the gathering or extracting natural
  resources
• Hunter gather groups
• Two primary activity groups
• Agriculture
• Resource
  exploitation

8
Subsistence agriculture

• Near total self-sufficiency predominant
  occupation of mankind today
• 2 types
• Extensive
• Intensive

9
Extensive subsistence agriculture

• Represents a very small of world population
• 2 groups
• Nomadic herding
• Shifting cultivation

10
Nomadic herding

• Wandering, but controlled movement of livestock
• Solely dependent upon natural forage
• Dry cold regions
• Requires large expanses of land
• Transhumance
• Small worldwide

11
Shifting cultivation

• nomadic farming - swidden agriculture, slash
  burn
• Located in warm, moist, lowlands
• Involves about 5 of worlds
  population
• Renewable strategy if
• population is low
• non-renewable when population
  is growing

12
Intensive subsistence agriculture

• Involves approximately 50 of the worlds
  population
• Some exchange between subsistence commercial
• Warm, moist climates (primarily in monsoon
  regions), fertile soils, river valleys, deltas
• Large labor requirements, small plots of land,
  intensive use of fertilizers, often double
  cropped

13
Intensive farming continued

• Urban subsistence farming /garden plots
• Increasing phenomenon worldwide
• Most prevalent in Asia
• Both private and commercial use
• Significant food source in cities
• Converts waste products
  to fertilizers, but can
  spread disease

14
Green revolution 1950s to 2000

• high-input, high-yield concept
• Characteristics requirements
• Genetically improved seeds
• Irrigation
• Mechanization
• Fertilization
• Pesticide application
• Outcome
• Food production increase, yet growing population
• Environmental, cultural, economic impacts

15
Impacts

• Irrigation problems
• Seed genetics
• Displaced traditional farmers
• Production gains dropping
• Population growth uncontrolled

16
Commercial Agriculture

• Characteristics
• 1. Specialization
• 2. Off-farm sales
  (not subsistence farming)
• 3. Interdependence of
  producers buyers
  through linked markets
• Agribusiness

17
Variables for profit

• Uncertainties
• 1. Physical nature of farm land weather
• 2. Costs of production
• 3. Uncertainties of growing conditions total
  volume output
• 4. Supply demand

18
Solution to uncertainties

• Contractual agreements
• Uniform product quality, timing of delivery
• Guaranteed market price
• Agribusiness, the merging of
• 1. Production
• 2. Processing
• 3. Marketing

19
von Thünens Model 1783 -1850

• increasing distance from city low-value crops,
  extensive land use
• near city high-value crops, intensive land use
• can be affected by topography, soil fertility,
  changes in market

20
Intensive commercial agr.

• High yields, high market value
• Highly perishable
• Limited field size, repeat plantings

21
Extensive commercial agr

• Farther from market, cheaper land
• Large land size required
• Dry farming / livestock ranching
• Low labor requirements
• Marginal land quality

22
Livestock ranching special crop agriculture
Principal wheat-growing areas of the world
23
Resources primary activity

• Two classifications
• Gathering industries
• Harvesting of renewable resources
• Extractive industries
• Removal of non-renewable minerals

24
Natural resources

• Naturally occurring materials that humans view as
  necessary/useful for its economic/material
  well-being
• Renewable
• maximum sustainable yield
• Non-renewable
• Humans have a changing view of resources

25
Fishing

• Primary, renewable resource
• 75 of world catch human consumption
• 1 billion people rely upon this resource
• 25 processed fish meal for livestock/fertilizer
  s
• One of the most
  dangerous industries
• U.S. 86 deaths per
  100,000

26
Fish supplies

• 120 million tons harvested worldwide
• Maximum sustainable yield is exceeded
• Sources
• 1. Inland catch
• 2. Fish farming
• 3. Marine catch

27
Overfishing problems

• Collapse of certain species
• Problems
• 1. Effect of El Nino
• 2. Pollution of inland coastal waters
• 3. Destruction of mangrove forests, coastal
  wetlands, estuaries, shallow continental shelf
  areas

28
Tragedy of the Commons

• Accepted view that worlds oceans are common
  property open to all
• No one is responsible for its maintenance,
  protection, improvement no collective controls
• Each user - exploits resource to maximum
  otherwise someone else will do so

29
Results

• 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of
  the Sea treaty
• Gave control of 200 nautical miles to nearest
  country
• Increasing fish farming
• Aquaculture both marine freshwater

30
Forestry

• Primary, renewable resource
• 12,000 years ago forest covered 45 of earth
• Today 30
• Two large global belts of commercial forests
• Upper-middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere
• Equatorial zones of South Central America,
  Central Africa, Southeast Asia
• One of the most dangerous industries
• U.S. 92 deaths per 100,000, highest danger rate

31
Major commercial forest regions
32
Mid-latitude forests

• Largest, most continuous stand, extending around
  the globe
• Boreal, temperate, 40N to 70N
• Northern region of forest
• Coniferous, softwoods
• Pine, spruce, fir
• Largest, most continuous stand, low diversity
• Construction uses, lumber, pulp
• Southern region of forest
• Deciduous hardwoods
• Oak, maple, hickory, birch
• Greatly reduced

33
Condition today

• Both regions threatened by
• Acid rain, atmospheric pollution, over
  harvesting, invasive species
• Areas held constant through
• Conservation, preservation/protection,
  reforestation

34
Tropical lowland forests

• South Central America, Central Africa,
  Southeast Asia
• Mahogany, teak
• Biodiversity, heavy forests can restrict ease of
  extraction
• Primarily located in the developing world
• Primarily exploited for
• Fuel, charcoal, and increasingly for lumber

35
Problems threats

• Northern forests
• 45 is for industrial use
• Southern forests
• 55 is for fuelwood/charcoal use
• Forest depletion
• Loss of a renewable resource
• Conversion to agricultural lands marginalized
• Economic/ecological implications

36
Fur trapping trade

• Ancient practice, dependent on northern forests
• 1960s anti-fur campaigns began continue
• Farmed furs today, 85 of industry
• Northern forest belt
• Increasingly challenged for inhumane treatment of
  animals
• Public banning of fur products

37
Mining quarrying

• Primary, non-renewable resources
• Distribution is uneven, determined by past
  geologic events
• Extraction is possible with technology
• First most accessible, highest quality
• Second lower-grade quality ore
• Requires higher energy consumption for extraction
• Deeper in earth
• Lower grade
• Smaller deposits

38
Mineral resources

• Non-renewable resource
• 1. Proven resources
• 2. Known reserves
• 3. Potential reserves
• Mining mineral extraction one of the three top
  most dangerous industries

39
Metallic minerals

• Copper, lead, iron ore
• Most abundant locations
• Russia, Canada, China, United States, Brazil,
  Australia
• Production is balanced by
• 1. Quantity available
• 2. Richness of ore
• 3. Distance to markets
• Dynamic market results in varying interests in
  deposits

40
Non-metallic minerals

• Common sand/gravel, gypsum, limestone, building
  stone
• Two types of usage
• Construction use (ingredients for cement)
• Widest distribution, greatest use, least
  long-distance movement
• Fertilizer use (potash, phosphate)
• Unequal distribution
• International trade higher market value

41
Mineral fuels

• Fossil fuels coal, petroleum, natural gas
• Made industrial revolution possible
• Non-renewable

42
Coal

• Coal earliest usage, most plentiful
• Largest reserves
• United States, China, Northern Hemisphere
• open-pit (surface mining)
• Very damaging to environment cutting off of
  entire hilltops
• relatively cheap extraction costs
• shaft mining
• expensive, more dangerous
• Very polluting slag heaps, ecosystem
  destruction
• Bulky to move

43
Petroleum

• 75 of proven reserves in just 7 countries
• Usage boomed in 20th century
• Costs effects
• Cheaper easier to move than coal
• Polluting global warming
• Reserves are diminishing
• Due to distribution lack of availability
  market value fluctuations, politically sensitive

44
Natural gas

• 25 of global energy consumption
• Popular due to
• Highly efficient, versatile
• Requires little processing
• Environmentally safe
• Problems
• Uneven distribution
• Difficult to move
• Pipeline, good, but transoceanic, difficult at
  best
• Limited supply