2018 (8) TMI 1171

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....ield and productivity and in furtherance of the above objective perform all of the following functions relating to Agriculture Extension Services & farmer training activities including (i) Understand problems which a farmer face from pests while growing crops and then performing all farmer training activities. (ii) Provide feed-back from farmers to Dupont on problems and constraints in crop protection. (iii) Create a linkage between farmers and Dupont to facilitate Dupont scientists to understand the crop requirement and develop solutions for crop protection. (iv) Explain the farmers about the manner of usage of Crop protections products including action, mixing process, contact or systematic action, insect killing process. (v) Create awareness about the crop protection techniques to increase production healthy crop, quality in seed, satisfy for crop. (vi) Time of application of crop protection products, (1) spray herbicide (2) spray insecticides (3) spray fungicide, (4) Application of Fertilizers, Micro Nutrients and Seed selection. (vii) How to use insecticides product safely without being unsafe to our body and also our crop product, does and point of purcha....

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....ral Extension Services". As per Section 65B (4) of the Finance Act, 1994, the said service is exempt from payment of service tax in terms of Section 66D (d) of the Finance Act as the same are covered under negative list. Therefore, they are not liable to pay service tax at all. 5. He has also contended that in the impugned order, the Ld. Commissioner has observed that the appellant is receiving remuneration in terms of sale/turnover, therefore, the activity is none other than the marketing of the product. His contention is that the appellant produced various documents and photographs and agreement between the appellant and the principal that they are providing Agricultural Extension Services, but on the contrary, the adjudicating authority has come to the conclusion that the appellant is promoting the product of their principal. The contention of the appellant is that there is no evidence on record to show that the appellant is engaged in the marketing and promotion of the product of their principal. Moreover, the appellant has supplied various list of farmers to whom, they provided the Agricultural Extension Services but no investigation was conducted with the farmers as well a....

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....r quality. (viii) Field demonstrations including, area measure, water and dose, crop stage, demo plot location  (ix) Farmer group meetings (x) Management, commitment and participatory methodologies as a sequel to the feedback from training programmes (xi) Farmer field day on demo plot, observing the results and then conduct field day. (xii) Agriculture Extension Services, which cover all operations in relation to farmer training & application of knowledge for better performance of agriculture operations." 9. We find that the services provided by the appellant in the nature of following:- "General Farmer training; Empirical training; Training for the harvest; and Stewardship. The detail of each activities is as under:- General Farmer Training Under farmer training, the appellant trains farmers in the best agricultural practices resulting in higher yields. Various factors affected the yields of a crop, such as (i) Soil type and conditions (ii) Time of sowing; (iii) Availability of water; (iv) Availability of nutrients; (v) Weather conditions; (vi) Weed management of water; (vii) Pest management; (viii) Disease control; (ix) Timely harvestin....

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....e submitted to substantiate their claim that they have been providing Agricultural Extension Service, could show that the farmers were being given any training through scientific research and knowledge to agriculture practices through farmer education and training." We have gone through the definition of agricultural extension under Section 65B (4) of the Finance Act, 1994 which is as under:- "Agricultural Extension means application of scientific research and knowledge to agriculture practices through farmer education and training." 11. As per said definition, the appellant was required to provide scientific research and knowledge to agriculture practices through farmer education and training. As per agreement, the appellant has provided the said service. The finding of the Ld. Commissioner is not appreciable. Accordingly, the same is turned down. 10. We take note of the fact that the appellant has provided ample evidence in respect of nature of the services provided by them by way of photographs and agreement of other materials but the Revenue has not come with an evidence that the appellant was engaged in the marketing and promoting the product of their principal while ....