Primary Economic Activities

The great number of "primary economy" websites and their topical diversity mean that any brief listing must be selective and incomplete. But their number also suggests many opportunities for following links and cross-references in pursuit of specific topics of interest. A few suggestions for getting started tied to the main chapter topics are offered below.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations through its home page (http://www.fao.org) provides connections to its subsidiary programs as well as to its own research and conference papers. The separate FAO Agriculture Department site at www.fao.org/waicent/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/Default.htm is perhaps the most useful and informative of the agriculture sites on the Web. Through its Magazine, Guides, and Gateway portals it yields a wealth of world, regional, and topical information.

The United States Department of Agriculture page is more limited, with primary emphasis on USDA programs, news releases, and agricultural legislation. It does have useful links to its "agencies" and their own home pages of varied information, including agricultural statistics, foreign agricultural service activities, and the like. View it at www.usda.gov/. Its Canadian counterpart, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, has its detailed introductory page at www.agr.ca/newintre.html with access to the agency's databases and to a wealth of programs and publications.

Two sources of extensive links to agriculture-related sites are the Iowa State University Department of Agriculture's Agriculture WWW Sites at www.ag.iastate.edu/other.html and the great variety of agriculture listings and topics on the Yahoo Science: Agriculture page at http://www.yahoo.com/Science/Agriculture/.

The FAO Fisheries department presents a world view with documents, data, and many specific subject links at www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/fishery/fishery.htm.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has both departmental information and publications data and extensive links to both its own divisions and other fishery-related sites. Find it at www.ncr.dfo.ca.

The United States' National Marine Fisheries Service is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Its diversified mission includes domestic and international fisheries support, trade and industry assistance, species protection and conservation services, and the like. Its home page at www.nmfs.gov/ gives access to current statistics and publications, to its several operational agencies, and links to its regional offices science centers.

Again, the international view, with statistics, reports, and links to other forestry sites, is offered by the FAO Forestry department:

www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/FORESTRY/forestry/htm. Particularly useful and informative is its biennial "State of the World's Forestry," offered for downloading in pdf format. And be sure to follow the home page to the current and earlier issues of "Unasylva," the FAO forestry journal.

The Canadian Forest Service home page is at http://nrcan.gc.ca/cfs and that of the U.S. Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture is at www.fs.fed.us/. Both have access to their own publications and links to other forestry-related sites.

The U.S. Geological Survey's Mineral Information page at

http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals is a lead-in to a wealth of information on mineral industries, mining, and processing, to a variety of statistics of commodity and region, and to its authoritative "Minerals Yearbook." Canada's Natural Resources Canada: Minerals and Metals Sector at www.nrcan.gc.ca/mms/ms-e.htm is also well worth exploring for data, publications, and "related links."

The United States' Energy Information Administration web site at www.eia.doe.gov/ opens up a wealth of data on such topics as petroleum, natural gas, coal, and the like, and on international and environmental aspects of the energy scene. It is a good starting point for your energy-related interests.

Primary resources in general are considered on both international and purely domestic sites, including:

The BUBL (Bulletin Board for Libraries) Information Service subject listings for agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, and fisheries at http://link.bubl.ac.uk/agriculture/ and Resources for the Future's home page at www.rff.org/. RFF's concerns are analytical and largely policy-oriented. To appreciate the diversity of RFF topics and quality of their consideration, examine the "Research Areas" segment of the home page and explore the topics cited there. Also check the World Resources Institute websites listed at www.wri.org/wrisites.html. They touch on resource topics of this chapter.

The World Trade Organization, established in 1995, is the principal agency of the world's multilateral trading system. Its home page at www.wto.org/ includes discussions of international conferences and agreements, reviews its own publications, and summarizes the current state of world trade.

The World Bank is a leading source for country studies, research, and statistics covering all aspects of economic development and world trade. Its website at www.worldbank.org/ provides access to the contents of its publications and links to its "partnerships" by regions and topics. In the United States, the Office of Trade and Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce is charged with promoting U.S. trade: www.ita.doc.gov/.