The primary sector of the economy includes any industry involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, fishing, forestry and mining.
[5] In developed countries the primary sector has become more technologically advanced, enabling for example the mechanization of farming, as compared with lower-tech methods[a] in poorer countries.
[6] More developed economies may invest additional capital in primary means of production: for example, in the United States corn belt, combine harvesters pick the corn, and sprayers spray large amounts of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, producing a higher yield than is possible using less capital-intensive techniques.
These technological advances and investment allow the primary sector to employ a smaller workforce, so developed countries tend to have a smaller percentage of their workforce involved in primary activities, instead having a higher percentage involved in the secondary and tertiary sectors.
[7] The twenty largest countries by agricultural output (in PPP terms) at peak level as of 2018, according to the IMF and CIA World Factbook.