Q.State, with reasons, whether the following is agricultural income: income earned by a farmer from a dairy business run on his agricultural land, selling milk from cows he keeps there.

Merely locating an activity on agricultural land does not automatically make its income agricultural.

Agricultural income under Section 2(1A) requires income to arise from a basic operation of AGRICULTURE performed ON land — tilling, sowing, growing and harvesting a crop. Dairy farming does not involve any such operation on the land; the land is merely the physical location where the cattle happen to be kept, and the income arises from selling milk produced by animal husbandry, not from any cultivation of the soil. Since the essential connection to a basic agricultural operation is missing, dairy income does not qualify as agricultural income, however closely it may be tied physica …

Assuming any income earned "on a farm" or "by a farmer" is automatically agricultural — the test is whether the ACTIVITY ITSELF is a basic operation of agriculture on the land, not merely the physical location or the occupat …