Confusion Over Definition
Research has identified a number of terms used to identify two-wheel tractors, including "iron-ox; walking tractor; Kubota; mechanical ox; ox-machine; power tiller; rotary hoe, rotary plough, rotary tiller; Rotavator, tok-tok".
"Power tiller" can be understood as a garden tiller/rototiller of the small (3–7 hp or 2.2–5.2 kW) petrol/gasoline/electric powered, hobby gardener variety; they are often sold as a rotary tiller, though the technical agricultural use of that term refers solely to an attachment to a larger tractor. Alternatively, the terms "power tiller" or "rotary tiller" are always understood in Asia and elsewhere to be rubber- or iron-wheeled, self-propelled machines of 5–18 hp (3.7–13 kW) and usually powered by heavy-duty single-cylinder diesel engines (many Asian countries historically have had a high luxury tax on petrol/gasoline). Adding to the nomenclature confusion, agricultural engineers like to classify them as single-axle tractors. For clarity, the rest of this article refers to the self-propelled, single-axle, multi-attachment tractive machines as two-wheel tractors.
For production agriculture, past and present, two-wheel tractors are offered with wide range attachments such as rotovators, moldboard, disc-plow and spike-tooth harrows, seeders, transplanters, and planters. Even zero till/no-till planters and seeders have become available. In plant protection two-wheel tractor attachments consist of various inter-cultivators and sprayers. For harvesting mowers, reaper/grain harvesters, reaper-binders, and even combine harvesters are available for them. For transport, trailers with capacities from 0.5 to 5 plus ton cargoes are available, meaning they can execute practically all of the chores done by larger 4-wheel tractors.
This confusion over, or perhaps just ignorance of the utility of 2-wheel tractors persists even at research and institutional levels. The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization's own statistical database, FAO Stat gauges levels of agricultural mechanization by numbers of 4-wheel tractors and ignores completely the fact that 2-wheel tractors often perform much, or even exactly, the same work as done by 4-wheeled models. By using FAO's statistics, international donors and agricultural research and development centres assume, as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have very few 4-wheel tractors, that they are completely unmechanized compared to (e.g.) India, which has a large population of them (besides 100,000 two-wheel tractors). Yet, when two-wheel tractors are included, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are the most highly mechanized countries in south Asia in terms of area farmed using mechanized tillage.
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