Secondary Activities

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Geography Class XII (Fundamentals of Human Geography), Chapter 5.

Why is a boll of cotton worth less than your shirt?

Raw cotton in the boll has very limited use. Spun into yarn and woven into cloth, it becomes a shirt. Iron ore straight from a mine cannot be used, but turned into steel it becomes machines and tools. Now picture a patch of the American corn belt covering 2.5 sq km. It holds about four large farms, employs 10 to 20 workers and supports 50 to 100 people. Put factories on the same patch and thousands of workers could be employed. That jump in value and in intensity is what secondary activities are about, and it explains why industries cluster in a few places while farms spread out.

What are secondary activities?

Secondary activities add value to natural resources by transforming raw materials into valuable products. They cover manufacturing, processing and construction (infrastructure) industries. The same is true for materials from the farm, forest, mine and sea: they gain value after transformation.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing includes everything from handicrafts to moulding iron and steel, stamping out plastic toys, and assembling delicate computer components or space vehicles. In every case the common features are the application of power, mass production of identical products and specialised labour in factory settings to produce standardised commodities. Some manufacturing uses modern power and machinery, and some is still very primitive. In many developing countries, manufacturing is still done by hand in the literal sense of the word.

Manufacturing versus manufacturing industry. Manufacturing literally means "to make by hand", but it now includes goods made by machines. It is a process that transforms raw materials into finished goods of higher value for sale in local or distant markets. An industry, conceptually, is a geographically located manufacturing unit that maintains books of accounts and records under a management system. Because "industry" is so broad, it is also used for activities that do not take place in factories, such as the "entertainment industry" and the "tourism industry". So, for clarity, the longer expression manufacturing industry is used.

Characteristics of modern large scale manufacturing

Craft versus mass production, in one line. Craft makes a few pieces to order at high cost. Mass production makes standardised parts in quantity at low cost, by splitting work into one task per worker.

Why industries choose different locations

Industries try to maximise profit by reducing cost, so they locate where production costs are lowest. Several factors work together.

These factors operate together to determine where an industry is located.

Why weight losing materials pull the factory to the mine. Think of an ore that loses much of its weight when processed. It is cheaper to process it near the mine and carry the lighter product, than to haul the full heavy ore a long way. Perishable materials work the same way: a delay in processing spoils them. That is why sugar mills stand close to cane fields and dairies close to milk supply.

Pause and predict: an industry makes a product from a bulky, cheap, weight losing ore and needs huge amounts of electricity. Which two location pulls are strongest?

Check your answer: the raw material source (because the ore is bulky and weight losing) and the energy source (because power use is high). For the aluminium industry, power is such a strong pull that location is often decided by electricity supply.

Two views. For the exam: industries choose points of least production cost, and seven factors, such as market, raw material, labour and energy, operate together. Another reading: the least cost way of explaining location, most associated with the geographer Alfred Weber, focuses on transport, labour and agglomeration costs. Later scholars added that real firms also respond to government policy, to the choices of managers and to the profit available at a place, not just to the lowest cost. The textbook's list includes government policy, which shows the two views meeting.

Footloose industries

Footloose industries can be located in a wide variety of places. They are not dependent on any specific raw material, weight losing or otherwise. They largely depend on component parts that can be obtained anywhere, produce in small quantity, employ a small labour force and are generally not polluting. The important factor in their location is accessibility by road network.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: footloose industries are not tied to raw material and depend on road access. In reality: the group includes many electronics and software firms, which is why such firms can be spread across many cities. Sugar, cotton textiles and vegetable oils are the opposite. They depend on bulky or perishable farm raw materials, so they are not footloose, which is a common wrong option. Why it matters: "footloose" does not mean "free from all conditions". It means free from tying to one raw material, with roads and skills still shaping the choice.

Classifying manufacturing industries

Manufacturing industries are classified by size, input or raw material, output or product, and ownership.

Industries based on size. Size depends on the capital invested, the number of workers employed and the volume of production.

On the basis of the system of large scale manufacturing, the world's major industrial regions fall into two types: traditional large scale industrial regions, thickly clustered in a few more developed countries, and high technology large scale industrial regions, which have diffused to less developed countries.

Industries based on inputs or raw materials.

Food processing. Agro processing includes canning, producing cream, fruit processing and confectionery. Preserving by drying, fermenting and pickling has been known since ancient times, but before the Industrial Revolution these had limited applications.

Agri-business. Commercial farming on an industrial scale, often financed by businesses whose main interests lie outside agriculture, such as large corporations in tea plantation business. These farms are mechanised, large, highly structured and dependent on chemicals, and may be described as agro-factories.

Industries based on output or product.

A link to trace: iron and steel (basic) → machines → textile industry → clothes (consumer goods).

Industries based on ownership.

Pause and predict: a country's factors of production are mostly owned individually, and most industries belong to private investors. Which type of economy is this?

Check your answer: a capitalist economy. In capitalist countries industries are generally owned privately. Socialist countries have many state owned industries, and mixed economies have both.

High technology industries and technopolies

High technology (high tech) is the latest generation of manufacturing. It applies intensive research and development (R and D) to make products of an advanced scientific and engineering character. Professional (white collar) workers make up a large share of the workforce, and these highly skilled specialists greatly outnumber the production (blue collar) workers. Robotics on the assembly line, computer aided design (CAD) and manufacturing, electronic controls of smelting and refining, and the constant development of new chemical and pharmaceutical products are notable examples.

The high tech landscape is made of neatly spaced, low, modern, dispersed office, plant and lab buildings, not massive assembly structures, factories and storage areas. Planned business parks for high tech start ups have become part of regional and local development schemes.

High tech industries that are regionally concentrated, self sustained and highly specialised are called technopolies. The Silicon Valley near San Francisco and the Silicon Forest near Seattle are examples.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Silicon Valley and Silicon Forest are the standard examples of technopolies. In reality: India has its own clusters, and Bengaluru is widely called the Silicon Valley of India, which answers the chapter's question about whether technopolies are developing in India. Why it matters: the key features to quote are regional concentration, self sufficiency and specialisation, not just the presence of computers.

Manufacturing contributes significantly to the world economy. Iron and steel, textiles, automobiles, petrochemicals and electronics are some of the world's most important manufacturing industries.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Primary Activities supplies the farm, forest and mineral raw materials that secondary activities process.
• Next: Tertiary and Quaternary Activities covers the services that move, sell and manage what factories make.
• Transport: Transport and Communication expands on the transport factor in industrial location.
• Industry in India: Mineral and Energy Resources covers the raw material and energy side of industry in India.