Primary Sector

3 Key excerpts on "Primary Sector"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Primary Sector in Economic Development (Routledge Revivals)

  Proceedings of the Seventh Arne Ryde Symposium, Frostavallen, August 29-30 1983

  • Mats Lundahl(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1. The Primary Sector and Production

  The Four Concepts of the Primary Sector

  What the Primary Sector is, what its functions and composition are, is far from clear. There can be at least four concepts or definitions of the Primary Sector. According to the first, ‘narrow’ definition, primary is synonymous with agriculture. The function of the Primary Sector is to produce agricultural consumer goods. In terms of the second ‘intermediate’ definition, the Primary Sector includes all activities needed to produce and deliver agricultural goods to the final consumer. The Primary Sector consists both of goods and services production. Storage, transportation, trade and even those personal services transforming the quantity, time and location dimension of agricultural goods6 are an integral part of it. The second is basically the definition used by Colin Clark.7

  The third notion of the ‘extended Primary Sector’ includes all rural activities producing agricultural, service and industrial consumer goods needed for the survival of a family. The function of the extended Primary Sector is to produce all consumer goods needed by rural households. As long as they are consumer-oriented and rural, all agricultural, service and industrial activities are part of it.

  And then there is the fourth and ‘broadest’ notion which includes within the Primary Sector all consumer and capital goods produced by and needed for the survival of rural families. Primary now is synonymous with rural. The primary is a multifunctional, multi-activity, multi-product and multi-service sector.

  The Four Types of Primary Sector Labour Surplus

  This fourfold classification of the Primary Sector is the first step in the process of decomposing its structure, identifying its idiosyncratic features and developing novel development strategies. The usefulness of this classification can be seen by examining the four ‘labour surplus’ concepts that correspond to the four aforementioned notions of the Primary Sector. There exists, first, the well-known and celebrated notion of the ‘agricultural labour surplus’.8 Surplus agricultural labour (narrow primary-sector labour surplus) is that part of the rural labour force that cannot

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A Handbook of Primary Commodities in the Global Economy

  • Marian Radetzki, Linda Wårell(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  The GDP is obtained by aggregating the value added from the Primary Sector, comprising agriculture (including hunting, forestry and fishing), mining (including extraction 28 of fossil fuels) and utilities; the secondary sector, basically manufactur- ing; and the tertiary sector, consisting of public and private service activities. The outputs from the Primary Sector can be unambiguously classed as commodities, but this definition is far narrower than the everyday concept of primary commodities. Also, the definition is ill suited for analyses of commodities in international trade, a lead theme in the present book. The point at issue is that the line between the primary and secondary sectors drawn by the ISIC is often quite early in the production process, before the product has reached its main mar- ketable stage. For instance, meat, paper pulp and refined copper are important primary commodities in international trade, but a significant proportion of their value has been added by the manufacturing sector through the activities of slaughterhouses, pulp mills and copper smel- ters and refineries. For this reason, national accounts statistics are of limited use in determining the value – or volume – of commodity production and trade, as commonly understood. The Standard International Trade Classification (SITC, also designed by the United Nations), which is employed to distinguish between different categories of goods in international trade, provides an alternative and, for our purposes, somewhat more appropriate tool for defining commodities, so we will employ the SITC in the rest of the book.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  Available until 10 Dec |Learn more

  Fair Economics

  Nature, money and people beyond neoclassical thinking

  • Irene Schoene(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Green Books

    (Publisher)

  “It is time to abandon dream-world economics and embrace real-world, scientific economics.”

  Prof. Richard Werner, University ofSouthhampton1

  9.   Reciprocal interaction in the three economic sectors

  The last chapter concluded with the observation that the principle of reciprocal interaction is in its most basic form practised in the economy, but mostly we are not aware of it. In chapter 7 , we found it hidden in both the private and the public range of nateconomy. Now we will try to show where it is practised, even if a MEANS of exchange is introduced.

  To do this we will follow a method which was invented by Allan George Barnard Fisher (1895–1976), already cited: Fisher used to separate economic activities into three sectors according to their typical pattern. His idea to divide and categorize the economic sectors is today followed by the offices for statistics all over the world. We will now discuss the different patterns typical for each economic sector:

  9.1.   The Primary Sector: Agricultural goods

  Fisher defined the Primary Sector by including everything which is harvested from nature, such as food or wood, for example. This sector contains the products of agriculture, forestry and fishery. So we can state that the Primary Sector represents our direct human interaction with nature.

  The goods of this sector can only be produced where the natural conditions allow it. Production is location-dependent, depends on the geography as well as the consistency and fertility of the soil, the climate and its location on Earth. Whether it is in the North or in the South will affect it, and whether it takes place near the sea or up in the mountains, for not every seed will germinate under the same conditions as certain plants will not grow, flower and fruit in certain locations.

  Humans have to rely on nature’s goods on which they live. They are dependent on nature’s production of fresh air and clean water, the first and most basic provisions, not only for themselves, but for every living being on the land or in the air or in the water. Humans cannot manufacture these basic provisions for life, while they are obviously able to spoil or even poison them, if they are not aware of or do not care about the consequences of their activities. Therefore, production in the Primary Sector cannot be decided about autonomously by humans.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book