Two people from totally different streams have been instrumental in reviving the barren paddy fields of a village near here through contract farming.

Fr Patric D'Souza, an environmentalist-priest, and Tinu Verghis, an international fashion model, came together two years back to herald contract farming, for the first time in Goa, at Pillar, a village on the city's outskirts.

"It started almost two years ago and now I am getting good response from the paddy field owners who are not able to cultivate their land," said D'Souza, a priest from the Society of Pillar, a wing of the Catholic Church.

The society's Nature Farm wing has taken up the task of executing contract farming at fallow lands in and around the village.

Mumbai-based Verghis, who has walked the ramp for top brands like GUCCI, Christian Dior and Prada, was the first one to offer her paddy field, ad-measuring around 6,000 sq mts, for the innovative farm arrangement between two parties.

The land was tilled last year and since then, D'Souza has received several other offers, mostly from Goans who are abroad and don't want their land to be kept uncultivated.

However, there is no monetary transaction involved in the exercise and the Society of Pillar uses the produce to feed students and orphans at institutions run by it.     

"It's important that my land gets cultivated and people get food," Verghis told PTI over phone from Mumbai.

The model purchased a house and paddy field in 2006.

"People don't mind allowing Society of Pillar to till their lands as they have confidence that their fields will not be encroached upon," Fr Feroz Fernandes, another priest who runs a magazine said.

Besides the desire to get their fields cultivated and see them green, there is a fear that the government may take away the fallow lands, and this has prompted some people to allow their fields to be sown, Fernandes stated.

The Goa government is working on a legislation to acquire the paddy fields which are left uncultivated for long.

D'Souza explained, "those who have given their land (for contract farming) are well-to-do people. They are not bothered about earning money. What they want is little rice harvested from their own field when they come down to Goa."

The Society of Pillars, set up in 1887, nurtures these fields on eco-friendly basis by using natural fertilisers.

"There are four pits for vermin compost here and an additional 14 are being constructed," D'Souza said.

The society has also availed benefits under the Centre's Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna to get equipment to cultivate the fields.