Definition of walking tractors

What is a Walking Tractor, and how definite a  Walking Tractor, is a very important question.

Research has identified a number of terms used to identify two-wheel tractors, including "walk-behind tractor; iron-ox; walking tractor; mechanical ox; ox-machine; pedestrian tractor; hand tractor; single-axle tractor; and in Asia, tok-tok".

There is also a fair bit of confusion in nomenclature regarding machines of similar size/configuration, that operate a single implement (such as power tillers; rear-tine tillers; rotary hoes; rotary plows; rotary tillers; Rotavators; etc.) The important distinction between a two-wheel tractor and any of these machines is that the two-wheel tractor is a single-axle machine where the operator usually walks behind it or rides the implement being towed. Two-wheel tractors are designed to operate multiple interchangeable implements, whereas machines in the categories above typically only operate one implement (such as a tiller), in which the implement is often integral to the machine (rather than being removable).

"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 (3.7–13.4 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 accept a wide range of implements, such as the following: For soil-working: rototillers, moldboard plows, disc-plows, rotary plows, root/tuber harvesting plows, small subsoiler plows, powered and non-powered harrows, seeders, transplanters, and planters. Even zero-till/no-till planters and seeders have become available. In plant protection and weed control, two-wheel tractor implements consist of various inter-cultivators and sprayers. For harvesting, available implements are: Forage: Sickle bar mowers, disk mowers, hay rakes, hay tedders, hay balers, and bale wrappers [for silage production]. For grain harvest: reaper/grain harvesters, reaper-binders, and even combine harvesters are available [although typically only for Asian two-wheel tractors]. For transportation, trailers with capacities from 0.5 to 5 plus ton cargoes are available. General mowing implements consist of lawnmowers, brush mowers, and flail mowers. For snow removal, implements consist of snowblowers, power sweepers, and snow/dozer blades. Other implements include: chipper/shredders, log splitters, electrical generators, pressure washers, crimper-rollers, fertilizer/salt/lime spreaders, and stump grinders. This list of implements (which may not be complete) means that two-wheel tractors can execute practically all of the chores done by larger 4-wheel tractors, except items like front-loaders, which have the physical stability requirements of a 4-wheel (two-axle) tractor.

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 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 centers 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 300,000 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. Two-wheel tractors are also extremely common for agricultural use in the mountainous countries of Europe.