The New Agriculture: Genetically-Engineered Food in Canada

Abstract

Agriculture in Canada is a mature staples industry. However it also contains some elements of a post-staples sector notably in trends towards an increasingly high technological component of basic foodstuffs. This is evident in the increasing mechanisation of farm production, the increasing sophistication of food inspection processes and other developments of industrial farming, but reaches its apogee in the use of sophisticated gene-splicing to produce genetically-engineered crops and livestock. The application of genetic engineering to agriculture remains controversial in the early years of the 21st century, however, rendering problematic any possible transition of agriculture from a staples to a post-staples industry.