Men of Culture
Agricultural technology is alive and well and happening in Franschhoek. Steven Frankel and Craig Taylor have opened an agritech business called Fruitlab where they are focussing on tissue culture. They believe technology is very much the future of agriculture and can see themselves also being part of research and development in this field.
Tissue culture is a sophisticated way of reproduction, simply explained as cloning of plants. This method as opposed to, for instance planting seeds, provides predictability; part of a selected plant is used to produce a new plant identical to the parent plant and assures superior plants of the next generation. Should genetic variation be required though, Craig says it can be introduced using laboratory techniques.
