Primary Sector: Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries Overview
Theme 4: Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries
Agriculture, livestock, and fisheries are economic activities belonging to the primary sector.
These primary activities today exhibit huge diversity and inequality between countries. Agriculture and livestock are often subsistence-oriented for household consumption, while the market addresses production for sale.
Current fishing faces ecological problems that require regulating catch and fishing areas.
The primary sector includes activities related to procurement and food production: agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and forestry.
The active population dedicated to the primary sector is smaller in Europe and North America than in Asia or Africa.
Agricultural activity is conditioned by the physical environment: climate, topography, and sun.
Weather: Temperature and humidity affect crops.
Relief: Plains and valleys are ideal sites for cultivation. Hillsides are utilized by building terraces or strips.
Soil: Soil texture conditions water retention, and acidity determines fertility.
Technified societies more easily overcome physical limitations with irrigation systems, fertilizers, artificial soils, greenhouses, etc.
Agricultural landscapes are landscapes changed by humans to extract natural products.
They differ by plots, tillage systems, and settlement.
A parcel is a piece of land devoted to cultivation.
Based on their characteristics, there are:
Landscape of open fields: with open plots, low extension, and regular forms.
Landscape of enclosed fields: plots with large, irregular shapes enclosed by walls or fences.
We distinguish cultivated varieties of products:
Polyculture: sites where several species are cultivated.
Monoculture: agricultural area specializing in one product.
Based on the need for water, we distinguish:
Irrigated landscape: fields are irrigated with groundwater or reservoirs.
Dry landscapes: Crops receive only rainwater.
Based on land use:
Intensive agriculture: produces the greatest amount of products in the shortest possible space (requires many interventions).
Extensive farming: obtains large crops in large quantities at low costs.
Rural settlements can be of two types:
Dispersed and concentrated.
Subsistence agriculture is geared towards self-consumption (consumption by farmers themselves).
Its main features are rudimentary farming techniques with very few tools and manpower.
It generates very low income and few surpluses for sale.
It presents great diversity throughout the world, including: slash-and-burn agriculture, dry farming, and irrigated rice agriculture.
Slash-and-burn agriculture involves burning fields or savanna forest.
Rainfed farming uses animal manure to exploit the soil continuously.
Plots follow a three-year rotation to ensure soil fertility.
Irrigated rice agriculture is very intensive because it obtains two harvests, one in summer and another in winter.
Agricultural markets have two objectives: increase sales and reduce costs.
Field mechanization: use labor-saving machinery.
Specialization: is based on producing a few crops to increase production through concentrated efforts.
Rapid commercialization of products with modern means of transport can accelerate sales and utilize appropriate transport for each crop type.
Speculative agriculture is a type of market agriculture.
Extensive agriculture is mechanized and specializes in cereals (United States).
Plantation agriculture: farms devoted to monoculture (coffee, cocoa, tea, etc.) that are in the hands of foreign enterprises (tropics).
Mediterranean agriculture: traditional agriculture has become market-oriented, irrigating fields, fertilizing them, etc.
Rainfed crops include: (vine, olive, corn.) Irrigated crops (fruit and vegetables) Greenhouse crops (pineapples, avocados…).
In world practice, there are: traditional farming, subsistence farming, and commercial or market farming.
Traditional cattle farming complements agriculture; animals work the field and provide fertilizer.
There is also traditional subsistence farming in some very dry areas.
Commercial livestock farming aims to sell production to the market and maximize profit.
In commercial livestock, we distinguish between intensive farming and ranching.
Fishery is based on the exploitation of animals from the sea. We can distinguish between: traditional or artisanal fishing and industrial fisheries.
Coastal fisheries: practiced near the coast.
Offshore fishing: takes place at sea for weeks or months.
Deep-sea fishing: operates for years in large vessels in distant waters.
The most serious fisheries problems are:
Overfishing: endangers many species.
Water pollution due to toxic spills, oil spills, etc.