Why we can’t seem to plan long term
January 8, 2003 | 12:00am
The greatest privilege of childhood is to be able to start a game over from the beginning when things do not go well. "Time out! Start over, please!"I will never forget the first time I realized that adult life is not as forgiving. I have been reminded of this over and over again every time I have had to pay the consequences for my mistakes.
We begin 2003 with an intent to start all over again. Will our leader’s appeal to all key players to unite and cooperate be heard?
Perhaps, the only way to rally everyone is to recognize that we are not each other’s enemy but allies in a much larger global game. The world is not waiting for us. While we fight and argue, we are losing out where we once dominated, and missing the chance to enter new frontiers. We are looking inward and gobbling up what we can in our little pond and thus miss seeing the great ocean of opportunity beyond. We have so little time left to reflect on what we do best, what we need to do to improve our capabilities, where we want to go with it, and how we go about promoting ourselves.
Friends from Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan speak about their urgent efforts to re-engineer their industries and services – fine tuning their overall focus and vision – to identify their niche vis-a-vis the grand emergence of China. Shouldn’t we be placing our energies doing the same? Should we not take a hold of ourselves, sit in a room and overcome our seeming adversity to plan?
My friend Phillip Ong of Santeh Feeds Corporation reflects on why we cannot seem to plan long term for our industries. He cites the case of the tilapia industry. "Tilapia will increasingly become the most important fish species in the world." Why? "Factors, such as ease of farming, ability to convert plant protein, sturdiness in transport, early sexual maturity, process-ability and fillet yield, contribute to its growing importance not only as a basic food fish for most of the world’s poor but also a gourmet fillet served in upscale restaurants in the wealthiest nations."
"The Philippines started farming tilapia in the 1950s. In 1986, the Philippines was the leading producer of tilapia in Asia at 56,000 tons (accounting for 23 percent of world production of 242,000 tons). From 1986 to 2000, the production of tilapia in the Philippines increased to 95,000 tons or an average annual increase of 4.6 percent.
"In China, tilapia farming did not take off till 1990 when it aggressively sought faster growing species from Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. In 1986, it was producing 29,500 tons trailing Philippine production by half. However, by the year 2000, China’s production of 629,000 tons was about 6.5 times the production of the Philippines. China now accounts for 74 percent of the world’s total output. It is also one of the lowest cost producers of tilapia."
The tragedy is that we had the technology and a master plan that got lost in the process. So I can only conclude we must be the problem. Pick any industry, and there would be a similar sad story. The stakes of 75 million lives are just too high to play the game like children. One day, we will just not have the chance to start again.
Thanks for your comments at: dorisho@attglobal.net.
We begin 2003 with an intent to start all over again. Will our leader’s appeal to all key players to unite and cooperate be heard?
Perhaps, the only way to rally everyone is to recognize that we are not each other’s enemy but allies in a much larger global game. The world is not waiting for us. While we fight and argue, we are losing out where we once dominated, and missing the chance to enter new frontiers. We are looking inward and gobbling up what we can in our little pond and thus miss seeing the great ocean of opportunity beyond. We have so little time left to reflect on what we do best, what we need to do to improve our capabilities, where we want to go with it, and how we go about promoting ourselves.
Friends from Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan speak about their urgent efforts to re-engineer their industries and services – fine tuning their overall focus and vision – to identify their niche vis-a-vis the grand emergence of China. Shouldn’t we be placing our energies doing the same? Should we not take a hold of ourselves, sit in a room and overcome our seeming adversity to plan?
My friend Phillip Ong of Santeh Feeds Corporation reflects on why we cannot seem to plan long term for our industries. He cites the case of the tilapia industry. "Tilapia will increasingly become the most important fish species in the world." Why? "Factors, such as ease of farming, ability to convert plant protein, sturdiness in transport, early sexual maturity, process-ability and fillet yield, contribute to its growing importance not only as a basic food fish for most of the world’s poor but also a gourmet fillet served in upscale restaurants in the wealthiest nations."
"The Philippines started farming tilapia in the 1950s. In 1986, the Philippines was the leading producer of tilapia in Asia at 56,000 tons (accounting for 23 percent of world production of 242,000 tons). From 1986 to 2000, the production of tilapia in the Philippines increased to 95,000 tons or an average annual increase of 4.6 percent.
"In China, tilapia farming did not take off till 1990 when it aggressively sought faster growing species from Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. In 1986, it was producing 29,500 tons trailing Philippine production by half. However, by the year 2000, China’s production of 629,000 tons was about 6.5 times the production of the Philippines. China now accounts for 74 percent of the world’s total output. It is also one of the lowest cost producers of tilapia."
The tragedy is that we had the technology and a master plan that got lost in the process. So I can only conclude we must be the problem. Pick any industry, and there would be a similar sad story. The stakes of 75 million lives are just too high to play the game like children. One day, we will just not have the chance to start again.
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