Profiling dairy farm workers’ daily activity and physiological stress over the block-calving period with wearable technology – a pilot study

The calving period creates a peak in workload for seasonal, pasture-based dairy farms, yet data describing farmers’ physical activity and physiological stress during this period are limited. This small exploratory pilot study evaluated the feasibility of using wearable technology to quantify continuous physical activity and heart rate-derived physiological stress in dairy farmers during calving, and to describe variation across farms and tasks. Nine farm workers from five New Zealand spring block-calving dairy farms wore a Garmin Instinct 2 smartwatch for an average of 49 days during the 2024 calving period, with heart rate-derived metrics used to estimate metabolic equivalent of task (MET) minutes, minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and physiological stress scores. The sensor was worn by participants for more than 23 hours on 71% of study days, with no reported health or safety concerns from use of the sensor, demonstrating feasibility in this setting. Participants accumulated high and highly variable levels of physical activity, with median daily MVPA frequently exceeding 50 minutes and different trends over time observed between farms. These findings demonstrate the utility of wearable technologies for physical workload assessment and highlight the physical demands and variable physiological stress exposure experienced by dairy farm workers during the calving period. Further investigation into the sources of worker physiological stress on dairy farms is recommended.