A passion for farm safety, 'farm music'
Brandi Janssen of Iowa City just shakes her head to think about the hazardous jobs she performed as a little girl that were at the time considered routine growing up on her parents’ cattle farm in Missouri.
“I remember that my first job working cattle — I was probably 6 or 7 — was to sit on the fence and pull the headgate shut to lock a steer’s head in place for vaccinations,” she said. “It was terribly dangerous for a little kid.”
And yet this kind of past experience helps her to connect with farmers today as director of Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health, or I-CASH, a multi-institution group working hard to promote ag safety statewide.
Janssen’s agency headquartered here has several missions, programs and partners, but one of its priorities is to “improve the safety culture” of farming in our state. That means trying to reduce the number of farmers killed or maimed on the job when their tractor rolls over on them or they become trapped in a grain bin — to name only two of many, many hazards.
“Just having ROPS (rollover protection structures) on all tractors would make a huge difference,” she says. “And grain bin entrapments are completely preventable. You tie yourself off, you have someone with you and you follow a confined space entry plan.”
Of course the hazard list goes on and on — pesticide use, cleaning out hog manure pits, dealing with harvest fatigue — as will Janssen’s mission to keep reminding farmers that the career they cherish can be over in seconds.
“I was in a small group discussion recently at a non-farm workshop and happened to mention that farming kills more workers in our state than any other industry. The people around the table literally gasped,” she says. “It’s true. About 30 percent of our total occupational fatalities are on farms, about 30 farm deaths a year.”
But beyond her day job, Janssen connects with farmers in a different way through her after-hours passion, performing old-time music with her husband, Marc. It’s the kind of music rural people relished during the Great Depression and before when they rolled up the carpet in the living room of the farmhouse and struck up “You Are My Sunshine” on the fiddle. Some might call it “farm music.”
Between her banjo and guitar and her husband’s fiddle and mandolin, and with voices blending, this duo works to keep rural traditions of music and storytelling alive. They perform throughout the eastern half of the state and partner with other bands like the Slow Draws, Goin’ Up Caney and even the Dandelion Stompers.
Growing up the near the Ozark Mountains may have put Brandi’s music on this path, which was only enhanced when she met Marc while an undergraduate at Grinnell College. She later earned her masters and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Iowa, which she says fits nicely with her current job with I-CASH.
After performing together for several years, Brandi and Marc have a repertoire of literally hundreds of songs. Her favorite might be “I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow” by the legendary Carter Family.
“It’s what they call crooked,” she says. “It means the timing of the song is very unconventional. We play it the old-timey way and I just like it a lot.”
You get a feeling talking to Janssen that she has a pretty extraordinary connection with two worlds, the historic music of rural America and the modern-day effort to keep today’s farm folk safer and healthier.
She will tell you playing the old time music has a bonus perk for her job. It allows her to talk to farmers in a different role.
“When I am out performing, I see the same kind of people in the audience that I am in contact with through my work,” she says.
“But the thing is, I become more socially connected. After performing, I can sit at a table and talk casually with farmers and not feel like I’m walking in as ‘The Farm Safety Lady.’ Sometimes a person can learn a lot more that way.”
More information
Check out www.i-cash.org and www.theprairiefiddle.com.