It has been a challenge to link food, health and agriculture in Canada. The Networks of Centers of Excellence (NCEs) was a program established by the Federal Government in 1989 with the goal of mobilizing Canada’s research capability. The government realized that, because the country is so broad geographically, a mechanism was needed to link expertise and build critical mass in certain areas to “mobilize Canada’s research talent in the academic, private and public sectors and apply it to developing the economy and improving the quality of life of Canadians.” Funding comes from the federal granting agencies that are equivalent to the NIH and the NSF in the United States—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council—as well as from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Industry Canada, which is a federal government department with the mandate of adding economic benefit to Canada.