Primary activities

The essentials

Primary activities depend directly on the physical environment because they use earth's resources such as land, water, vegetation and minerals. People engaged in them are sometimes called "red-collar" workers because much of their work is outdoors.

Gathering and hunting are the oldest activities. Gathering is practised in high latitudes (northern Canada, northern Eurasia, southern Chile) and low latitudes (Amazon basin, tropical Africa, northern fringe of Australia, interior South-East Asia). Pastoralism may be nomadic herding (moving with animals in search of pasture and water) or commercial livestock rearing (organised ranches with scientific breeding, as in New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Uruguay and the USA). Transhumance is the seasonal movement of herders between plains and mountains, as practised by Gujjars, Bakarwals, Gaddis and Bhotiyas in the Himalayas.

Key points

• Primitive subsistence agriculture (shifting cultivation): forest is cleared by slash and burn; called jhuming in north-east India, milpa in Central America and Mexico, and ladang in Indonesia and Malaysia.
• Intensive subsistence agriculture: monsoon Asia; can be rice-dominated (wet paddy) or dominated by other crops like wheat, soybean, barley and sorghum.
• Plantation agriculture: introduced by Europeans in tropical colonies; single crop (tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, sugarcane, banana) on large estates with capital and cheap labour.
• Extensive commercial grain cultivation: wheat on very large mechanised farms in mid-latitude grasslands (prairies, steppes, pampas, velds, downs, Canterbury plains).
• Mixed farming: crops plus livestock, in north-western Europe, eastern North America and parts of Eurasia.
• Dairy farming: capital- and labour-intensive; near urban markets in north-western Europe, Canada, south-eastern Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania.
• Mediterranean agriculture: citrus fruits and viticulture (grapes for wine).
• Market gardening and horticulture: high-value vegetables, fruits and flowers for urban markets; truck farming is named after the distance a truck can cover overnight to market.
• Cooperative farming is successful in Denmark and the Netherlands; collective farming (kolkhoz) was introduced in the former USSR.
• Mining: surface (open-cast) for shallow deposits – cheaper and safer; underground (shaft) for deep deposits – costlier and riskier.

Exam tips

Match local names of shifting cultivation with their regions; this is a favourite question.

Common mistakes

Transhumance is seasonal movement with herds, not permanent migration of farmers.