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“It's a rich and long history and a story that needs to be told,” says retired food chemist
BY ANDREW VOWLES
It's been more than a century since the first “dairy train” set out from the then-fledgling Ontario Agricultural College to deliver not milk but new ideas for making dairy products. Beginning in 1891, OAC deployed a railway car equipped to provide an early form of extension education to farmers and producers across the province, an idea that was copied elsewhere in Canada and abroad.
The dairy train ended its run after just four years, but its spirit of innovation and learning continues in today's Department of Food Science, says retired professor David Stanley.
The dairy train is just one of numerous little-known facts about food science studies at Guelph contained in an online history published last month by Stanley. Called Tracing Food Science at the University of Guelph and North America, the work covers food science research and teaching since the founding of the dairy school in 1893. That school led to the dairy science program that in 1968 became today's department.
“It's a rich and long history and a story that needs to be told,” says Stanley, a food chemist who retired in 1995 after spending 25 years at the University. He spent several months researching the project, including interviewing former department members and poring through library archives.
The project was the suggestion of the grandson of Don Irvine, head of the former dairy science department from 1957 to 1966.
Besides tracing the history of Guelph's Department of Food Science, Stanley investigated the growth of similar units at universities in Canada and the United States.
His examination of early food research in Canada also includes a cross-campus link to today's College of Social and Applied Human Sciences. Part of that college grew from the home economics program begun at Macdonald Institute.
Stanley's account mentions Adelaide Hoodless, who was instrumental in obtaining funds for the new institute from the Macdonald tobacco family (her own interest in home economics was sparked after her son's death from drinking contaminated milk).
Two other early builders caught Stanley's eye. One was James Wilson Robertson, appointed head of OAC's dairy department in 1886 and also influential in obtaining funding from the Macdonald family. Having begun a career as a cheese maker without graduating from a university, Robertson became Canadian commissioner of agriculture and dairying and eventually received a number of honorary doctorates.
Laura Rose was among the first graduates of OAC's early dairy course and later became the first female instructor hired by OAC; she taught at the dairy school for 14 years. (She came from the Georgetown family that launched Five Roses flour.) Her desire to improve farm lives, particularly for women, led to her founding several chapters of the Women's Institute.
“She established the fact that women as well as men could benefit from a science education,” says Stanley.
Today U of G has one of only six accredited food science departments in Canada and 51 in North America.
Guelph is also home to the central milk-testing facility, another nod to those early dairying roots. Established in 1967 as the first milk-testing centre in Canada, the facility now tests more than 400,000 samples a year within Laboratory Services.
“Every producer of milk gets samples taken and analyzed here for components,” says Stanley. “Payment to producers in the province is based on the analyzer in that lab. It's not sales just based on quantity but also based on quality.”
Prof. Doug Goff, an expert in dairy products who studied at Guelph (Stanley was one of his professors), says: “We are standing on the shoulders of giants. This place has a tremendous reputation, so I think it's important to remember the early history.”
Goff and Stanley have also produced a poster chronicling the past century of dairy research, education and extension at U of G.
To view Tracing Food Science at the University of Guelph and North America, visit www.foodscience.uoguelph.ca/home and click on “Welcome” and then on “Food Science History.”
