ABSTRACT

Beginning in the early 1800s the ability to preserve food was revolutionized by new canning techniques. The first innovation of note came in 1809 when Nicolas Appert won the 12,000 francs prize from Napoleon for inventing a way to preserve food by using bottles to 'can' food. Clearly the evolution of different regulatory bodies has resulted in different approaches to food safety and the protection of public health and this creates different cultures with respect to food fears. The emergent industrialization of the food process leads to an iteration between increased urbanization, growing distances between people and their food, and the scaling up of what will become the food industry. This chapter describes the importance of basic research for agro-biotechnology and provides comments about the role of intellectual property rights in the context of basic research. The federal mega-ministry Industry, Science and Technology Canada (ISTC) was created to hand out money and oversee a national research network.