Primary, secondary and tertiary sectors

Is a farm that makes jam and runs a cafe really a farm, a factory or a shop? Picture a family farm in Kent that grows strawberries in its fields. It boils some of the strawberries into jam in its own kitchen. And it serves the rest with scones in the cafe by the car park. The sign at the gate says farm, and that feels like the answer. But if you could give it only one kind of work, which would you pick? Three kinds of work hide in that one farm, and the close sorts them.

Businesses are sorted into three sectors of production, by the kind of work they do. The private and public sectors are a different meaning of the word sector, with a video of their own. The primary sector takes natural resources from the earth or the sea. Farming, fishing, mining, quarrying, forestry, and extracting oil and gas are all primary. The secondary sector turns raw materials into finished or part-finished goods. Manufacturing, construction and generating energy are all secondary. The tertiary sector provides services. Retail, transport, banking, healthcare, tourism and hospitality, which means hotels, restaurants and cafes, are all tertiary. Now a quick one. A furniture maker turns planks of oak into tables. Which sector of production is that? Secondary. The maker takes a raw material, wood, and turns it into a finished good. Most products pass through all three sectors on their way to you, in a chain of production. Wheat is grown on a farm, which is primary. A mill and a bakery turn it into flour and then bread, which is secondary. The shop that sells you the loaf is tertiary. Now a chain of your own, with three businesses in a row. Try it on paper before I show you the answer. A quarry digs clay, a brick works turns the clay into bricks, and a builders' merchant sells the bricks. Which sector of production is each in? The quarry is primary, because it extracts a natural resource. The brick works is secondary, because it turns that raw material into a finished product. The merchant is tertiary, because it provides a service, selling the bricks. Now a why question. Suppose the quarry floods and closes for a month. Why would that hurt the merchant? The brick works runs out of clay and stops making bricks, so the merchant soon has nothing to sell. A problem in one sector travels along the chain.

Knowing the three sectors is half the job. Writing the answer down is the other half. Northcoast Seafoods runs four boats that catch crab off the Northumberland coast, and sells the catch to restaurants. Four students are asked which sector of production it is in. A writes: the primary sector. B writes: fishing. C writes: land. D writes: primary and tertiary. Which one of the four answers is right? Pick one, then hold on to it before I reveal it. Only A. Catching crab takes a natural resource from the sea, and A gives the name of that sector. Now the reason. Why does C, land, fail? Land is a factor of production, a resource a business uses. Primary is a sector of production, a kind of work. They come from two different lists. B gives an example of primary activity, not the sector's name. D gives two answers to a question that asked for one. Selling the crab to restaurants does not change the answer, because the activity Northcoast carries out is catching. One examiner's report, on a short question asking for one sector of production, says more than half of students did not answer it correctly. It names the common errors: confusing sectors with factors of production, describing the sector, and giving examples rather than naming it. The same report says the question asked for one sector, and that only the first sector written will be taken. So the fix is to write the sector's name first, then one example as support, and to write only one sector. If you can already sort businesses into the three sectors, you are with the majority on another examiner's report, which says most students could identify and explain the type of production. The crab question was lost on the answer's form: an example, a factor or two sectors, written where one sector's name was asked.

Businesses can also be grouped by industry, which is a second list with a different job from primary, secondary and tertiary. One course also lists eleven named business sectors, which group businesses by industry, so if yours prints that list, this last part is for you. Agriculture grows crops and raises animals. Construction builds houses, roads and offices. Energy produces gas, oil and electricity. Healthcare looks after people's health. Hospitality serves food, drink and places to stay. Manufacturing makes goods in factories. Retail sells goods to the public. Science researches and tests, as a laboratory does. Technology makes software and devices. Tourism organises trips and holidays, and transport moves people and goods from place to place. Now a different one. A business bakes bread in a large factory and sells it to supermarkets across the UK. Which business sector is it in? A, agriculture. B, hospitality. C, manufacturing. D, retail. Manufacturing, option C. The business turns flour into bread in a factory, so it makes goods. Now a reason again. Why is D, retail, wrong for the bread factory? Retail is selling to the public. This business sells to supermarkets, and the supermarkets do the retailing. One examiner's report names placing a steel producer in manufacturing as the most difficult of its multiple-choice questions, with only seventy-four point four per cent of students getting it right. A steel producer turns iron ore into steel, so it makes goods, even though its customers are other industries rather than shoppers. The fix is to ask what the business does, not who it sells to. Energy shows how the two lists meet. Extracting gas from under the sea is primary, while burning it in a power station to generate electricity is secondary. Every industry has businesses at every scale. In tourism, a bed and breakfast in Snowdonia hosts walkers locally. A holiday park company with sites across Britain works nationally. And a tour operator selling package holidays in dozens of countries works globally. Whichever list a question uses, classify the business by the activity it carries out.

Your turn for the recap, with businesses you have not met yet.

A forestry company fells trees in Scotland. Which sector of production is it in?

The primary sector, because felling trees takes a natural resource from the land.

Now a builder puts up a block of flats. Which sector of production?

The secondary sector. Construction turns raw materials, such as bricks and steel, into a finished building.

A different kind of question. A firm builds new railway bridges. Which of the eleven business sectors is that?

Construction, because the firm builds things. Transport is the trains that later run across them.

Now the rule itself. Asked to identify a sector, what do you write?

One sector, by its name, such as the tertiary sector, with an example only as support.

Now the family farm in Kent can be sorted. Growing strawberries in the fields is primary. Boiling them into jam is secondary. Serving them with scones in the cafe is tertiary. The farm does all three kinds of work, and farm was never a sector's name. When a question asks for one sector, you name the one that fits the activity it points to, and you write only that one.

If you could put the Kent farm right for a friend, thumbs-up this one, because you could teach this one. If that felt fast, that's normal, so save it and watch it through once more.

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