http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/farming-with-oxen-zm0z13mazgou.aspx
If the dream is to grow a rotation of corn, soybeans and wheat on 1,000 acres, oxen probably aren’t for you. However, if a mixed crop homestead, small dairy, market garden, maple sugar bush, or grass-based livestock operation of three to 50 acres is more appealing, oxen can compete as a power source.
Making a straight cost comparison between tractors and oxen can be problematic. A new compact tractor can easily set someone back $15,000, and with a basic set of implements, the cost continues to grow from there. Obviously, used tractors are an option on a small farm, but the initial investment in a pair of calves may be as low as $100 to $200.
However, a pair of calves is not really analogous to a tractor; there are many hours of training to complete. For this reason, purchasing a grown team is a favorable option in some parts of the United States. The 4-H Working Steer Program produces many quality teams trained by youngsters, and has for nearly a century. Expect to pay around $1,000 to $2,500 for a well-trained team. (One way to look at it is price of beef plus training.)
This is a consistent report, horse and mules tend to be more productive on farms of less then 50 acres.
This has been known for decades, here is an article from 1973:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/training-oxen-farming-with-oxen-zmaz73mjzraw.aspx
On small farms, less then 50 acres, Oxen, Horses and Mules are still competitive.
Now, you can attack this on the ground the products from a 50 acre farm can not pay the current price for such a farm, thus you have to go to a larger farm OR find another source of income to pay off the farm. While true (and the main reason Oxen, horses and mules were replaced by tractors, starting in the 1930s, accelerating in the 1950s and all but disappearing by 1970) if you have a farm of less then 50 acres, animal power is the way to go.
This set of tractors, of less then 25 horsepower is design to compete with oxen, horses and mules. In many ways such tractors complement oxen, horses and mules for you have to feed oxen, horses and mules every day, but only fill up the tractor when you need it. Thus if you can use a oxen, horses and mules all the time, but need extras during certain times of the year, a Tractor would be a nice add on. No need to feed for extra oxen, horses and mules when you do need them.
That is the niche I suspect this tractor maker is aiming at. He is hoping to expand into areas of full time use of oxen, horses and mules but that is in the future (and not the distance future, within 10 years).
Side note: Cuba share the same off shore oil that the US has been drilling since about 2000, This oil field, in addition to the fracking fields, are the reason the US oil production has increased since 2000. Thus Cuba has a secure future in oil (not at the present time, but in the near future). Thus oil in the future is NOT a much as problem for Cuba as it will be for the US after 2017 (that is the year most fracking oil fields will clearly be in rapid decline and the US oil boom will have died).
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