Architectural Design of a Farmers’ Market, at Onitsha, Anambra State
Chapter One
AIM OF THE STUDY
To encourage the production and consumption of homegrown agricultural produce.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The objectives that will be initiated to achieve the said aim includes:
- To provide stalls for the sales of farm produce.
- Fireproofing of stalls to improve the fire safety measures.
- Provision of different types of stall, with different rent prices.
- Provision of open space for auxiliary traders.
- The market will be open to everyone, but only 6 days a week, with a time frame for opening and closing.
- Provision of sufficient walkways through the market area.
- Provision of car park to tackle vehicular traffic, with specified routes for trailers and personal cars.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
CONCEPTUAL ISSUES
THE CONCEPT OF MARKET
“Market” is an area or setting in which price making forces (demand and supply) operates. It is the organization of the exchange of commodities and process by which all the institutions and people concerned are kept in close contact. Kohl and Uhls (1980), defined market as an area for organizing and facilitating business activities, and deciding on what to produce and distribute. The emphasis in the concept of market is on the “contact” which is established between sellers and buyers. These contacts can be established either by letter writing. (i.e correspondence), through the use of a telephone or by meeting at a particular place or on the internet. Market sustains the economic base of towns as well as the tax base of local authority. Hence, the market is both an economic institution as well as the links between people of diverse ethnic groups, racial background and cultural traits, (Claes, 2005). Meanwhile, for a market to be perfect, certain conditions has to be fulfilled. They include the following issues examined:
- Population of buyers and sellers: The number of buyers and sellers should be so large that no buyer or seller can influence the price of the commodity traded.
- One unique price: This is the basis of a perfect market. When price differences are eliminated, one price comes to prevail, which is the sign of a perfect market.
- Complete and perfect knowledge of conditions in the market: Buyers and sellers must have exact knowledge of demand and supply situations and prevailing prices elsewhere in the market.
- Free entry and exit: For a market to be perfect, each buyer and seller should be able to move in and out of the market freely with little or no restriction.
- Homogenous commodity: The product of any seller in a perfectly competitive market must be the same product of any other seller.
- Very small or no transport cost: The cost of transport should be minimal, at least relative to the cost of the commodity to be purchased.
Marketing refers to the process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying consumers‟ requirements for the goods and services they need. Marketing may be thought of as simply the process of making goods available to consumers and covers all business functions, including decision making (Arena, 1998). As such, the existence of market depends greatly on marketing, which involves sellers and buyers or consumers, determining the needs and desires of buyers, educating them with regards to available products and developing strategies to persuade them to buy.
Agricultural marketing consists of all the activities involved in the flow of agricultural related commodities and services from the point of production to the point of consumption (Olukosi and Isitor, 1990). According to Abbot and Makaham (1990), “The marketing of agricultural produce begins at the farm, when the farmer plans his production to meet specific demands and market prospects.” Arena (1998) expanded the scope of agricultural marketing to include the legal, physical and economic services that makes it possible for products to move from producers to consumers in the form desired by the consumers. These functions include those of buying, transportation, processing, standardization, marketing intelligence, selling of farm inputs and outputs.
DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE MARKETING IN ONITSHA, ANAMBRA STATE.
The state lies between latitudes 5°41 and 7°051 North and longitude 6°31 East and occupies an area of approximately 5025 km2 (NPC, 2006). It was carved out of the former, larger Anambra State on August 27, 1991. It is bounded by Delta State to the west, Imo State to the south, Enugu State to the east and Kogi State to the north. With a land mass of about 4,416sq km with an approximate population of 4,182,022 (as at 2012). The people of Anambra State are predominantly Igbos and are very industrious. The inhabitants of the rural communities are mainly farmers. Within urban towns and cities, there is the cultivation of market gardens. Anambra State is divided into four agricultural zones (namely: Aguata, Anambra, Awka and Onitsha). The agricultural zones are comprised of 21 Local Governments Areas.
Three out of the four agricultural zones were purposively selected (Onitsha, Aguata and Awka) due to high concentration of market garden operators. Two Local Governments Areas were similarly purposively selected from each of the agricultural zones to give a total of six Local Governments Areas used for the study. Selected Local Governments Areas were Onitsha North and South, Awka North and South, Nnewi North and Aguata. Each Local Governments Areas, has on the average 15 market gardens. Considering the manageable number and strong network among gardeners in the state.
CHAPTER THREE
GENERAL PLANNING PRINCIPLES
THE BRIEF
The farmers’ market like every other market is open to everybody, there will be very free and open flow of traffic from one end through to the other. The main marketing area will be roofed in different partitions, to provide cross movement around the market, their roofs will drain water into an underground water cistern, which will store up water for flushing the public toilets, watering the gardens, freshen the fruits, washing the vegetables. As much as possible there will be a high percentage of soft area on the site, in order to reduce the amount of surface run-off, which in turns reduces the flood rate; to digress a bit, no matter what is been built, it is a common practice in Anambra state, that immediately after any construction work that the client covers the site or most parts of the site with hard materials, concrete, German flooring, Cement garden tiles and others, all with the intent to deal with overgrowing weeds or to beautify the area, unknown to several of these persons, they are indirectly increasing the amount of water in the surface run-off, causing erosion, spoiling our roads, and various other disruptions here and there. Therefore, the soft area must be sufficient to take in enough water. The market hall (used for meeting, and Wednesday prayers), the Administrative building, the Canteen, the Wholesale service points, the waste disposal unit, the public health inspection offices and other vital office will be located close to the marketing area.
LITERTURE REVIEW
The most common form of marketing in Nigeria takes place between households at village level or at some exchange points such as a road side station. The next form of marketing occurs when people meet periodically in some organized manner to buy and sell goods to satisfy their needs and exchange information with one another. Meanwhile, the marketing of agricultural produce in Nigeria is broadly divided in to three categories. These include rural markets, regional and inter-regional urban markets.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION OF ANALYSIS
Site Selection Criteria
In the interest of sustainable development, the site for the proposed farmers’ market would be selected through a holistic, ecologically based approach, to create a design that does not alter considerably or impair the location area. There are three possible suitable sites.
The Selection Criteria amongst these three includes:
- The site of the market should be accessible to vehicular and pedestrian traffic by either transport or on foot.
- There should be no adverse effects on the residential amenities of the surrounding areas as a result of the livestock market being sited there.
- The neighbouring functional zones should not be affected by the possible disturbance generated by the operation of the market or any of its related activities.
- There should be sufficient capacity on the surrounding road network to adequately accommodate the resultant traffic generated.
- The location of parking spaces within the market should be achieved without any adverse effect on the free movement, circulation and safety of vehicular or pedestrian traffic.
- Adequate arrangements should be made on the site for: Site drainage, Waste management, parking facilities. Without requiring any additional construction or maintenance resources dedication or reconstruction of the site to suit the anticipated purpose.
CHAPTER FIVE
DESIGN SYNTHESIS
Design Concept
According to White (1979), as cited by Uji (2002) in his book “evolution of design thought”, concept formulation is basically the process of obtaining an explicable vocabulary of architecture forms and objective of the client as sought to be represented by the building. White (1979) considers a concept as the primary generator, the central theme and further notes that a concept is any of or all of these:
- An initial generalized idea held to be interpretation of the problem
- A mental image resulting from or formed out of perception and analysis of the problems and contracted to represent the building morphology.
- The development of organizational pattern for design program begins with the observation of the characteristic activity of user.
He further stated that the physical design is generally the result of a combination of the three concepts:
- The characteristics of the construction site; its shape, topography; the surrounding environment; accessibility etc leads to specific design form.
- The use of the functions of the structure as form generators.
- Accommodating the programme in arbitrarily pre-determined spatial forms.
Uji stressed that concept is a broad principle affecting perception and behaviour, a broad abstract idea or a guiding general behaves or how nature, reality or events are perceived. A school setting he continued can be compared to a community, a place for learning such as the vocational centre should aim to provide opportunities of adult learning and communal activities and for the users to learn to live in groups other than families. The safety of the youth and learning in a calm controlled atmosphere must be a major factor in the design of learning spaces.
References
- NPC (2006). National population census news, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
- Characteristics of market garden in Anambra State, Nigeria Ofoka C. I., Chah J. M. and Madukwe M. C. Department of Agricultural Extension, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria. Page 3971
- Ayoola, G. B. (2009). National medium priority framework for food security and agricultural development in Nigeria. Agricultural Economics Department University of Agriculture Makurdi Benue State, Nigeria.
- Ayodele, O. S., Obafemi, F. N., & Ebong, F. S. (2013). Challenges facing the achievement of the Nigeria vision. Global Advanced Research Journal of Social Sciences.
- Ray, D. (1989). Development economics. NJ: Princeton University Press.
