Agriculture - Indian Laws - General

Agriculture As per The New Encyclopaedia Britannica , Vol.l, p.156) Agriculture is the science or art of cultivating the soil, growing and harvesting crops, and raising livestock. The art of making land more productive is practiced throughout the world - in some areas by methods not far removed from the conditions of several thousands of years ago, in other areas with the aid of science and mechanization, as a highly commercial type of endeavour. According to Oxford lllustrated Encyclopedia of Invention and Technology, Agriculture is cultivation of the soil, including the allied pursuits of gathering crops and rearing livestock. (at p.7). Fish farming is a branch of aquaculture involving the rearing of fish under controlled conditions. Ideally, the environment is controlled so that natural predators are eliminated, optimum nutrition is provided, and the fish flourish. (at p. 133). The principles which are deducible from C.IT. v. Benoy Kumar - 1957 (5) TMI 6 - SUPREME COURT , relevant for our purpose are set out as under :- 1. The primary sense in which the term agriculture is understood is ager (i.e. field) and cultura (i.e. cultivation) , that is, the cultivation of the field and if the term is understood only in that sense, agriculture would be restricted only to cultivation of the land in the strict sense of the term meaning thereby, tilling of the land, sowing of the seeds, planting and similar operations on the land. They would be the basic operations and would require the expenditure of human skill and labour upon the land itself. There are however other operations which have got to be resorted to by the agriculturist and which are absolutely necessary for the purpose of effectively raising the produce from the land. They are operations to be performed after the produce sprouts from the land..........The latter would all be agricultural operations when taken in conjunction with the basic operations above described, and it would be futile to urge that they are not agricultural operations at all. 2. The subsequent, secondary or incidental operations must be in conjunction with and in continuation of the products raised on the land, i.e. the basic operations amounting to agriculture. 3. The term agriculture cannot be confined merely to the production of grain and food products for human beings and beasts but must be understood as comprising all the products of the land which have some utility either for consumption or for trade and commerce and would also include forest products such as timber, sal and piyasal trees, casuarinas plantations, tendu leaves, horranuts etc. 4. The mere fact that an activity has some connection with or is in some way dependent on land is not sufficient to bring it within the scope of the term and such extension of the term agriculture is unwarranted. The term agriculture , cannot be dissociated from the primary significance thereof which is that of cultivation of the land and even though it can be extended both in regard to the process of agriculture and the products which are raised upon the land, there is no warrant at all for extending it to all activities which have relation to the land or are in any way connected with the land. The use of the word agriculture in regard to such activities would certainly be a distortion of the term. MAHESHWARI FISH SEED FARM VERSUS T. NADU ELECTRICITY BOARD AND ANR. - 2004 (4) TMI 632 - SUPREME COURT