After the global financial crisis sent shudders through the international diamond industry and saw diamond prices plunge, the Israel-based DATA Technologies began looking for alternative ways to deploy its counting systems, which are widely used in the gemstone and diamond trade.

According to a report on the agricultural news website Freshplaza.com, DATA realized that its solutions could find a natural home in the seed packaging industry and proceeded to look into the matter. It turned out that its counting machines were, in fact, well-suited to the task of seed counting and packaging and could be adapted to the requirements of agrotechnology with only a few changes.

DATA's first multi-channel counting system, the DATA Count S 660 has been installed at Zeraim's Gadera production center, and the company is now packing pepper and tomato seeds in precise counts of 1,000 at a rate of 30-42 bags of seeds a minute.

In a press release, DATA said that the company had been certain that its technology could make the transition from diamonds to seeds and that the decision had been a "natural" one.