Tanzania Coffee Production Doubles in 2012 - 2013.

Tanzania Coffee Production for May 2012 - April 2013 is estimated at 61,012 metric tons. This nearly doubles the 32,044 tons produced last season, stated Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) Director General Mr Adolph Kumburu in an interview at the Coffee Conference held in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

The current year, is the heavy crop year in the alternating low and high natural production cycle. The weather has also favored output as June rains are expected average-to-above-average.

Tanzania, East Africa’s third biggest economy plans to raise production to 80,000 tons by 2016 as new trees are planted, according to Mr Kumburu. He said “We want to take advantage of growing global demand and coffee is one of the sectors we are using to improve household incomes”.

According to the International Coffee Organization estimates, coffee demand is growing 2.5% a year and Tanzania exports nearly 98% of its beans.

Data from the board show that Tanzania earned USD 235 Million from coffee exports in 2011-12, mainly to the US, Japan and Germany. Although the country is currently looking for other markets in the European Union, the Middle East and the Far East, especially China.

Technology give Farmers in Tanzania a Boost.

Agriculture in Tanzania gets a boost as farmers can now choose the best technology approach from a 'basket of technology options' in an innovative approach to rural development in Tanzania among small scale farmers.

The Rural Initiative for Participatory Agricultural Transformation (RIPAT) was launched by the Danish Rockwool and Research, Community and Organizational Development Associates (RECODA), is a flexible agricultural extension approach implemented in Northern Tanzanian since 2006.

Modern agriculture methods through RIPAT produces good yields and so far farmers have testified on raking in higher income.

Prof Amon Mattee from Sokoine University of Agriculture said RIPAT has added value to the current approaches being implemented in the agricultural sector in Tanzania.

The Professor of Food Nutrition and Public Policy at Cornell University, USA, Per Pinstrup-Andersen said RIPAT has been successful and deserves to be replicated in other parts of Tanzania and Africa in general.

The new innovative approach to rural development is being implemented by RECODA and is a deepening investment in Tanzania agriculture by the Rockwool Foundation.

Africa Educating Women Key to Sustainable Farming in Africa

The successful implementation of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa is linked to improvements in women’s education, according to a study.

SAPs are often touted as a solution to land degradation, low agricultural productivity and widespread poverty in the region.

The new study is the result of research conducted in rural Ethiopia that aimed to identify interdependent factors affecting the adoption of SAPs in Sub-Saharan Africa and their impact on incomes and livelihoods.

It was carried out by a team from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The researchers analysed a household survey – conducted between October and December 2010 – of 900 farm households working on 4,050 farming plots in three maize-growing regions of Ethiopia.
They identified the factors that influence the adoption of three key SAPs: using improved seeds; conservation tillage; and maize-legume crop rotation systems. They also compared how incomes were affected by the three different practices.
“We found that each year of education for women increases the probability of adopting more than two of the SAPs by 12 per cent,” says Hailemariam Teklewold, the lead author and a research fellow at the University of Gothenburg.
“The impact of women’s education was relevant in both male-headed and female-headed households,” Teklewold adds.

The study says that, “in almost all cases, the adoption of a combination of SAPs provides more maize income compared to adopting them in isolation”.
Farmers who adopted all three practices earned the largest net income of 5,580 birr (around US$300) per hectare per year, but those who adopted only one of the practices – intercropping, conservation tillage, or improved seeds – earned about US$100, US$128 and US$154 per hectare per year, respectively.
Solomon Jemal, an agronomist at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, says the study provides concrete evidence of the importance of mainstreaming gender issues in SAP efforts in Africa.
He tells SciDev.Net: “The study’s findings should make stakeholders consider the important role of women in adopting SAPs, and of designing interventions that will be favourable to women smallholder farmers.”
John Achieng’, an agronomist at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, says the findings relating to women’s education are highly relevant to Sub-Saharan Africa.

“About 70 to 80 per cent of farming activities in Sub-Saharan Africa are done by women, and, because girls drop out of school faster than boys, governments should ensure more women are given an education,” says Achieng’. The higher one’s level of education, the higher the rate of adoption of a technology, he says.

But Achieng’ warns that implementing conservation agriculture also poses some challenges that are unfavourable to poorer farmers. For example, yields are usually lower for the first two years after implementation, although they pick up considerably in subsequent years.
Also, “many smallholder farmers grow crops and keep livestock, and will prefer to give crop residues to their livestock rather than keep them in the soil as SAPs require,” Achieng’ says.

Source: SciDev.Net

Tanzania State to Acquire Plane for Aerial Crop Spraying

Arusha — THE government intends to spend two billion/- to purchase a new aircraft as well as repair the existing, but grounded plane to undertake aerial crop spraying applications for the Arusha based, Plant Health Service Department.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mr Mohammed Muya stated here that the plant protection unit located at Tengeru in Meru District, has for years been depending on other international organizations in conducting aerial crop-dusting.

“Due to lack of aircraft units to perform the aerial applications in agriculture, we have been compelled to hire planes from the International Red Locust and Desert Locust Control Centres in Africa especially the Ndola (Zambia) based units in order to assist Tanzania perform its own crop dusting exercises whenever the situation calls for it,” said Mr Muya in Arusha over the weekend.

The Permanent Secretary revealed that the government was spending more than 800 million/- annually for crop protection and agricultural pests and diseases control programmes as precautionary strategies to ensure that the country’s agricultural produce exports met stringent international standards.

“This budget of 0.8 billion/- however is only for operational costs and does not include the procurement of chemicals such as herbicide or pesticide, that may entail additional expenses,” said Mr Muya.
The Arusha Plant Health Services Department (Kilimoanga) at Tengeru is the country’s main crop disease control centre which is also serving as the National Armyworm Forecasting Services Centre; the unit also runs a special “Agricultural Services” hangar at the Arusha Airport in Kisongo area.

Africa: New Era of Food Scarcity Echoes Collapsed Civilisations

Washington — The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity. Over the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush and ushering in a new geopolitics of food.

Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.

This new era is one of rising food prices and spreading hunger. On the demand side of the food equation, population growth, rising affluence, and the conversion of food into fuel for cars are combining to raise consumption by record amounts.

On the supply side, extreme soil erosion, growing water shortages, and the earth’s rising temperature are making it more difficult to expand production. Unless we can reverse such trends, food prices will continue to rise and hunger will continue to spread, eventually bringing down our social system.

Can we reverse these trends in time? Or is food the weak link in our early twenty-first-century civilisation, much as it was in so many of the earlier civilisations whose archeological sites we now study?

This tightening of world food supplies contrasts sharply with the last half of the twentieth century, when the dominant issues in agriculture were overproduction, huge grain surpluses, and access to markets by grain exporters. During that time, the world in effect had two reserves: large carryover stocks of grain (the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins) and a large area of cropland idled under U.S. farm programmes to avoid overproduction.
When the world harvest was good, the United States would idle more land. When the harvest was subpar, it would return land to production. The excess production capacity was used to maintain stability in world grain markets. The large stocks of grain cushioned world crop shortfalls.
When India’s monsoon failed in 1965, for example, the United States shipped a fifth of its wheat harvest to India to avert a potentially massive famine. And because of abundant stocks, this had little effect on the world grain price.
When this period of food abundance began, the world had 2.5 billion people. Today it has seven billion.
From 1950 to 2000 there were occasional grain price spikes as a result of weather-induced events, such as a severe drought in Russia or an intense heat wave in the U.S. Midwest. But their effects on price were short-lived. Within a year or so things were back to normal. The combination of abundant stocks and idled cropland made this period one of the most food-secure in world history.

NGO Launches Programme to Promote Agriculture

In a bid to teach youths in the country how to make money from farming, Femina HIP, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that promotes healthy lifestyles amongst youths, officially launched the Ruka Juu Young Farmers in Business television programme.The Assistant Director of Crop Production Promotion Services from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Mr Beatus Malema, while addressing the Femina HIP 7th annual conference in Dar es Salaam on Monday, said that the initiative has the potential to inspire and motivate youths to take charge of their lives, through agriculture.He further went on to say that, “With the majority of the population being under 25 years of age, we need to remember that it is these young people who hold the key to the country’s agricultural future.“As the younger generation gets older and becomes our work force, we need to empower them with skills they need to have productive farming businesses. The Executive Director of Femina HIP, Dr Minou Fuglesang, said the youths in Tanzania are faced with tremendous challenges including staying healthy, receiving proper education, obtaining sustainable livelihoods and gaining access to participating in decision-making in their communities.

He added that, “We are well aware that there is a lot of stigma around farming. It is seen as unattractive, heavy, dreary and dirty. It’s for the older generation and not modern enough for young people. “At Femina we want to challenge these myths and create a mindset change, when it comes to agriculture.If productivity is improved and business skills are learnt, agriculture has the potential to be a very profitable and ‘modern’ enterprise.”Through the television programme, viewers will follow six young contestants cultivating crops for income generation and will put their agricultural and entrepreneurial skills to the test as they face practical challenges on the television show.The show will commence at the beginning of March. The programme will also be broadcast on radio weekly. The half-hour programme will provide voices from farmers and experts.The programmes are timely as government has invested heavily in the ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ campaign. It is important for young people to understand the huge potential agribusiness holds. Farming can mean money, jobs, stability and security.

New Tractor Models May Improve Farming Methods

In attempts to back up government-led ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative, a Dar es Salaam-based company, dubbed “Noble Motors Limited (NML),” recently launched two newly low-fuel consumption and affordable farm machinery.

These were a 40 hp Powertrac 439 tractor, with inventor and Powertrac 4455, a 55hp tractor with 4 cylinders. Speaking to ‘Daily News’ in an exclusive interview at the official launching of the tractors, the company’s Agricultural Machinery Division Sales Manager, Max Mhagama said the firm was more than committed to enabling farmers to access modern farm implements suited to the realities of the country.

Through its Agricultural Machinery Division, the company’s other main tractor brands it deals in are Farmtrac 80 and Powertrac from Escorts Ltd of India; Foton Lovol tractors from China and other farm implements, trailers, power tillers and combine harvesters.

A handful of journalists who attended the launching of the new models, also witnessed various types of modern machinery on display. Expounding further on how the inverter works, Mhagama said it was practical for a typical Tanzanian farmer.

“The inverter is operated while tractor is parked, it gets charging during the day while the tractor is operated in the field. It is sufficient to provide lighting as well as operating some electric gadgets like a “14 TV or electric fan at all places without electricity for at least 5-6 hours, depending on the number of pieces of equipment’s connected,” he said.
On the Powertrac 4455, Mhagama said the engine is extra- powerful for a 55hp tractor because it is 4 cylinder. However, its main characteristic as a Diesel Saver gives low fuel consumption ideal for any farmer. “This machine uses 3.5 litres of diesel per acre. The tractor is power steering, has a dual clutch, seats for driver assistants and a sun protector.
The driver’s seat is adjustable,” he explained. “We have so far managed to reach out to as many farmers as possible across the country. Every year, we organise service camps through which we provide free services and sell spare parts to various farmers determined to revolutionise agriculture.

The service camps are advertised through radio networks throughout the country. We receive a lot of positive feedback about what we are doing,” he said. He said although NML started its dedicated agricultural machinery division in 2000, the importation of various products went back to 1994.
On services offered, Mhagama said a customer who bought a machine at their company had a oneyear guarantee service. “We offer after sales service. The company makes sure a customer gets tractor installation and operation instructions by NML mechanics to whichever region a customer is based.
All mandatory first 4 services are provided by the company within the one-year guarantee period at the recommended intervals of tractor working hours,” he noted. He said after the guarantee period, the customer is expected to pay nominal charges for services and repairs to be done at his sight.
Furthermore, the company will be introducing VST 150 DI Dragon Shakti Mitsubishi power tillers, which will increase fieldwork operations. During the same occasion, there was a handing over of the newly introduced Powertrac 4455 tractor to the first customer, Mr Anderson Elias, who had purchased from Noble Motors Limited.

Speaking to the ‘Daily News,’ the customer said he was happy to have known NML through their reliable services and with what he had purchased he believes he has a quality product and has established good networking. He urged other Tanzanians to familiarise themselves with the company and get what they wanted.
Since its inception in 1994, NML’s main thrust area has been to build an organisation that can provide quality services of highest standards to automobile users in Tanzania. Presently, it is providing services to many international clients, embassies, corporate institutions and a few individuals who have understood the cost-effectiveness of their services.
The company maintains a modern showroom and workshop facility in Dar es Salaam, offering a comprehensive range of automotive related services to discerning customers. Currently, NML is in process of building another state-of-art showroom and service centre in Tanzania to meet customer needs and increased products. Since 2009, the government of Tanzania has been making considerable efforts to mobilise the private sector to engage in strategic agricultural investment and production as provided for in Resolution 4 of ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ Initiative.


There are positive responses to show how the private sector welcomed the idea. Some private companies have decided to invest in agricultural production or in the importation and distribution of agricultural implements and inputs. The sector of agriculture accounts for about half of the national income, three quarters of exports and is the source of food and provides employment opportunities to about 80 per cent of Tanzanians.
It contributes 26.7 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 30 per cent of exports and 65 per cent of raw materials for Tanzanian industries. Agriculture has therefore the highest multiplier effect on the economy. Revolutionising it implies utilising modern farm implements to improve production and eradicate poverty.

Tanzania Cassava to Replace Maize Farming in Africa

Arusha  FARMERS in Tanzania should shift from planting maize to growing cassava, since the latter will soon overtake the former’s demand on the continent.

Scientists meeting here have pointed out that cassava is on the verge of replacing maize as the main staple for the nearly one billion residents of the African continent and that the ‘roots’ value is clocking to over two billion US dollars per year, it was observed here yesterday.

“Cassava is currently the most drought resistant crop which can also thrive in lownutrient soil and scientists have come up with new varieties that are resilient to diseases,” explained Dr Nteranya Sangina, the Director General for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.

His organisation, the IITA is hosting the 12th International Plant Virus Epidemiology Symposium, which is taking place here. The event has gathered scientists from more than 40 countries worldwide.

With the threats of global warming and the related climate change, the scientists attending the symposium are on view that maize which has always been the main food crop for Africa is losing its hold on the continent’s staple food, as it increasingly becomes susceptible to drought and diseases.
“In Nigeria, cassava has already taken over from maize. We make ‘ugali’ from cassava and extract ethanol from its roots and we are now using cassava to make bread which means the crop is also replacing wheat,” said Dr Sangina.


Dr Elly Kafiriti from the Naliendele Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) said his Mtwara-based Southern Zone Research and Development Centre is currently working to develop disease resistant cassava, as well as developing more resilient crop variety to intercept the effects of changing climate and emerging diseases.

Morogoro is being described to have highest potential for cassava growing in Tanzania and Kitui area can do the same for Kenya and together, they can make East Africa self reliant on food and totally abolish the importation of food during drought spells.
Running under the theme, Evolution, Ecology and Control of Plant Viruses, the symposium is said to be also focusing on emergence, epidemiology and control of native and new virus diseases. “This is to reflect on prevailing situation of virus diseases in Africa and around the world that are not only ravaging the crop production, but also affecting the international exchange of germ plasm and commerce,” explained Dr Sangina.
The Arusha-held, five-day symposium will also provide a forum for exchange of latest knowledge and technologies to control virus diseases and pave way for an African and global strategy to combat emerging and re-emerging plant virus diseases.

Tanzania: Irrigation Will Revolutionise Agriculture in the Country

GETTING out of his car con fidently, the tall, lanky young man heads towards the well cultivated farm, and with obvious expertise on display, he proceeds to inspect the young water melons which have started to sprout.

The farm lying on several acres of land has long, black tubes, with a thickness of a grown man’s finger, which are spread evenly across the farmland. I came to learn later that they are used for irrigation purposes. Innocent Mbelwa, at only 28 years, has great ambitions in farming, but had it not been for his determination, he was on the verge of giving up hope; luck had nothing to do with it.

“When we started farming, we could manage to cover only a small piece of land, because we had to rely on manpower for watering the crops, and it was a tedious and tiresome work,” he says. There are several factors affecting the agriculture sector. First of all agriculture heavily relies on rain and therefore unfavourable weather results in poor harvest. What started as a dream project is slowly taking shape, and with enthusiasm ringing in his voice, Mbelwa is ready to take on all challenges facing them.

The founding member of Tin Wax Investment in Kigamboni in Dar es Salaam, Mbelwa and his ten partners faced challenges before they could get a breakthrough, when they had to cultivate less than two acres of land. “There were only four of us when we started, and because the job required a lot of manpower, all of us had to get actively involved in all the processes of taking care of the farm, and sometimes were forced to hire extra help, but that was before Wezeshwa na Safari Lager programme came into the picture,” he says.

Wezeshwa na Safari Lager is a programme introduced by Tanzania Breweries Limited(TBL) through its brand Safari Lager. The purpose of this programme is to empower young entrepreneurs who are interested to grow their small businesses into profitable and sustainable enterprises. Mbelwa took the initiative to apply for the programme, which Tshs. 200 million worth of grant funding at stake from TBL and his main concern was to be able to get an irrigation system for their farm.
They were overjoyed when it was announced that Tin Wax Investment were part winners of the 200 million grant and were to be awarded a modern irrigation system for their farm. This was to go hand in hand with a one week business training course. “After that, things started moving, and from the less than two acres we were cultivating, we expanded and we are now farming on 13 acres of land,” he says proudly.
Now the group, apart from growing water melons, is also growing carrots, onions, cucumbers and bell peppers (pilipili hoho) and have a ready market for their freshly grown vegetable. On the other side of the city, 26 year old Elizabeth Chami, a local baker in Tabata, Dar es Salaam is one happy lady, after TBL handed over a large brand new oven which she requested through the Wezeshwa na Safari Lager programme.
Operating using old and outdated equipment in her bakery business, Elizabeth always had a dream of owning a modern oven that will help her to bake bread and pastries in large quantities quickly. After her father saw the Wezeshwa na Safari Lager programme advertisment in the newspapers, Elizabeth took the bold step of applying and requesting for a modern baking oven, and when she won the competition and her request was granted, she was thrilled.
“I could not believe it when I was called by TBL and told that I was among the few lucky winners, and when the oven was delivered to me, I knew it was the beginning of greater things,” she says. She says that before getting the new oven, she was using old charcoal stoves which are not special for baking, saying that this slowed her down because it took more time to keep up with her clients.

Currently, she is in the process of looking for a new larger location for her bakery because, thanks to her new oven, increase number of newly employed staff and demand for her baked goods has outgrown the current location. Meanwhile, the Managing Director of L and V Integrated Firm, Valerian Luzangi, 38, is counting his blessings too, he won 15,000 plastic bottles for his business from Wezeshwa na Safari Lager programme.

Based in Mikocheni in Dar es Salaam, Luzangi is an entrepreneur who has established a small factory where he specializes in manufacturing two different kinds of shampoo for humans and dogs. With the availability of packaging material presenting a challenge, he decided to try his luck and apply for the Wezeshwa programme, where he requested for plastic bottles. His request was granted, and 15,000 bottles were promptly hauled to his factory, and immediately his production numbers rapidly increased and he hired new employees to be able to keep up with the growing business.
“I used to produce and sell about 40 cartons of shampoo a day every day, but after getting the new bottles, now I can produce more than 100 cartons every day, and I know I can do even more,” he says.

Tanzania Revamps Fish Market

Kalambo,The government of Tanzania has launched a programme to improve the fish market in Kasanga – south of Lake Tanganyika. The Tsh800m ($495,835) fish market that was built two years ago on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, lacks electricity and fish storage facilities which affects the fishing sector.
In 2011, government earned $176,797.8m (Sh230.01 bn) in revenue and Sh230.01 billion, ($176,797.8 m) from fish and fisheries products.
“We want to change this move to ensure that this fish market benefits the local fishermen and the government. We are going to put in place electricity and storage facilities for fish,” Kalambo district commissioner, Moshi Mussa Chang’a told East African Business Week. Chang’a noted that Tanzania fishermen sell over 100 tons of fresh fish per day to Zambian traders .
In December last year, twenty-eight Zambian fishermen were arrested by Tanzanian police for allegedly fishing on Tanzania waters, according to Zambia’s police spokesperson Ms Elizabeth Kanjela.
She said that a team of Zambian defence and security officers travelled to Tanzania to negotiate their release from Matai Police Station.

Tanzania to Launch Cashew Nut Plant.

Dar es Salaam, The government’s move to launch a cashew nut processing plant is good news as it stands to increase Tanzania’s economic growth as well as benefiting cashewnut farmers.

Recent reports show that the government is in talks with a British investor to set up a cashewnut processing plant that will aim at controlling export of raw cashewnut standing at 90% of all the cashew nut export harvested in the country.

Speaking to East African recently in Mtwara during a familiarization tour organized by Bioscience for Farming in Africa (B4FA), Dr. Louis Kasuga of Nailiendele Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) said that there is need to make sure that the country processes its cashewnut locally because it stood a better chance of benefiting more than exporting unprocessed nuts.

Kasunga said besides the benefits from the oil peels that can be used as lubricants in different machineries, the country can also benefit from the ashes after burning the peeled shells that can be used as fertilizers for different crops.

“We are losing a lot from exporting the unprocessed nut oversees to India and other countries,” said Kasunga adding that the exportation of unprocessed nuts also reduces the prices of nuts at the world market.

Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT) report shows that Tanzania produced around 158,000 metric tonnes of cashewnuts in 2012.

Only 10% of the nuts were processed internally thus denying the country both the income and employment opportunities.

The Minister of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives Minister, Mr. Christopher Chiza was recently quoted as saying that the government saw it wise to look for an investor in cashew nuts processing factories to help tap the economic opportunities of processing the crop in the country without further elaborations.

He however, noted that Tanzania government had still no knowledge of whether the new investor will revive the old unfunctioning factories or construct new factories.

Feeding Limbs and Nervous System of One of Earth's Earliest Animals Discovered

 

An extraordinary find allowing scientists to see through the head of the 'fuxianhuiid' arthropod has revealed one of the earliest evolutionary examples of limbs used for feeding, along with the oldest nervous system to stretch beyond the head in fossil record.

Until now, all fossils  found of this extremely early soft-bodied animal featured heads covered by a wide shell or 'carapace', obscuring underlying contents from detailed study

But a new fossil-rich site in South China has been found to contain arthropod examples where the carapace has literally been 'flipped' over before fossilisation -- allowing scientists to examine the fuxianhuiid head to an unprecedented extent.

The study, published today inNature, highlights the discovery of previously controversial limbs under the head, used to shovel sediment into the mouth as the fuxianhuiid crawled across the seabed, millions of years before creatures emerged from the oceans.

Scientists say that this could be the earliest and simplest example of manipulative limbs used for feeding purposes, hinting at the adaptive ability that made arthropods so successful and abundant -- evolving into the insects, spiders and crustaceans we know today.

Using a feeding technique scientist's call 'detritus sweep-feeding', fuxianhuiids developed the limbs to push seafloor sediment into the mouth in order to filter it for organic matter -- such as traces of decomposed seaweed -- which constituted the creatures' food.

Fossils also revealed the oldest nervous system on record that is 'post-cephalic' -- or beyond the head -- consisting of only a single stark string in what was a very basic form of early life compared to today.

"Since biologists rely heavily on organisation of head appendages to classify arthropod groups, such as insects and spiders, our study provides a crucial reference point for reconstructing the evolutionary history and relationships of the most diverse and abundant animals on Earth," said Javier Ortega-Hernández, from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences, who produced the research with Dr Nicholas Butterfield and colleagues from Yunnan University in Kunming, South China. "This is as early as we can currently see into arthropod limb development."

Fuxianhuiids existed around 520 million years ago, roughly 50 million years before primordial land animals crawled from the sea, and would have been one of the first examples of complex animal life -- likely to have evolved from creatures resembling worms with legs. Arthropods were the first jointed animals, enabling them to crawl.

Fuxianhuiid arthropods would have spent most of their time grazing on the sea floor, using these newly discovered limbs to plow sediment into their mouths. They could probably also use their bodies to swim for short distances, like tadpole shrimps.

The fossils date from the early part of the event known as the 'Cambrian explosion', when life on Earth went from multi-cellular organisms we know very little about to a relatively sudden and wide spread explosion of diverse marine animals -- the first recognisable evolutionary step for the animal kingdom we know today.

"These fossils are our best window to see the most primitive state of animals as we know them -- including us," said Ortega-Hernández. "Before that there is no clear indication in the fossil record of whether something was an animal or a plant -- but we are still filling in the details, of which this is an important one."

While still a mystery, theories about the cause of the 'Cambrian Explosion' include possible correlations with oxygen rises, spikes in oceanic nutrient concentration, and genetic complexity reaching critical mass.

But the new site in South China where these fossils were found could prove to be key in uncovering ever more information about this pivotal period in the history of life on Earth. The Xiaoshiba 'biota' -- that is the collection of all organisms preserved in the new locality -- in China's Yunnan Province is similar to the world-famous Chengjiang biota, which provided many of the best arthropod fossil records to date.

"The Xiaoshiba biota is amazingly rich in such extraordinary fossils of early organisms," said Ortega-Hernández. "Over 50 specimens of fuxianhuiids have been found in just over a year, whereas previous areas considered fossil rich such as Chengjiang it took years -- even decades -- to build up such a collection."

"So much material is so well preserved. There's massive potential for Xiaoshiba to become a huge deal for new discoveries in early animal evolution."

Scientists Discover New Species in One of World’s Deepest Ocean Trenches

Physicists Discover Inorganic Dus

Study Shows Ancient Relations Between Language Familie