THE average nominal wage of the country’s agricultural workers this year remains below P200, although it rose by about P5 a day to P198.37 from P193.45 the previous year.

This, according to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), which defined nominal wage rate as the amount of pay a farm worker actually receives. It is measured at current prices.

BAS also said only about 74 percent of hired farm workers in agriculture, majority of them males, were paid in cash; 26 percent were paid in kind.

In its report, titled “Trends in Agricultural Wage Rates 2011,” BAS also noted that male farm workers were paid more at a daily average of P200.66, or P11.80 higher than the wages of female workers.

“By region, male farm workers in Central Luzon reported the highest nominal wage rate of P288.21 a day [while] female workers received P243.67 daily,” BAS said in its report.

Palay farm workers received the highest nominal wage rate at P223.52 a day, the report noted, with male workers in palay farms receiving P227.93, while females got P207.84.

“Nominal wage rate received by palay farm workers across regions ranged from P173.83 per day in Eastern Visayas to P286.45 in Central Luzon,” the report read.

On the average, coconut farm workers in the Philippines received a daily wage rate of P184.97. Region-wise, the highest nominal daily wage rate of P266.62 was given to male farm workers in Central Luzon.

Sugar-cane farm workers, meanwhile, received an average nominal daily pay of P196.50. Across regions, the highest nominal wage rate was registered by male workers in sugar-cane farms in Ilocos region at P257.99 a day.

Among the four crops surveyed, laborers in corn farms were paid the lowest at P176.06 a day. Male workers received P178.44 while females took home P170.87 daily.

“Sugar-cane farms required the biggest labor inputs at 88.92 man-days per hectare, followed by palay and corn at 57.90 man-days and 52.18 man-days, respectively,” the report read.

Employment of female workers in palay farms, BAS said, was most visible in pulling and bundling of seedlings, planting/transplanting and harvesting. The participation of women in coconut farming was “very minimal.”

The BAS report is an annual publication that presents the wage rates statistics on agriculture, particularly palay, corn, coconut and sugar cane based on the results of the Agricultural Labor Survey.