Ag Swag products show off rural style

HARRINGTON – Sometimes a great conversation can be kicked off by a unique item someone is wearing. It could be an interesting logo on a ballcap, a quote on a shirt or an image on a coffee cup. For the founder of Ag Swag, a Harrington area clothing and accessory business, that’s just the idea.

Ag Swag is both a local and online retailer with products available via their website, Agswag.us, as well as at the Post and Office coffeeshop in Harrington and Creekside Pharmacy in Davenport.

Business founder Julie Jacobsen said the business idea came up after an unusual set of circumstances in Davenport.

“In 2018 a group of vegans from Spokane decided they were going to hold a ‘vigil’ for the animals being sold at Stockland Livestock in Davenport,” Jacobsen explained. “They wanted to lay hands on the animals and let them know that they were loved.”

Jacobsen said she learned about the vigil though social media and while she was frustrated at the lack of understanding from the group about ranching, she was also concerned about the response they received.

“I thought ‘gosh, if you only knew what we did to take care of our animals’. It’s like the saying goes, no cows, no cowboys,” Jacobsen related. “But I also saw that some of the comments from locals were pretty rude and I was thinking it would be great if we could find a better way to communicate, to try and understand where they were coming from.”

From that experience, Jacobsen continued to ponder ideas she’d had for some time about ag related products. From that brainstorming session, Jacobsen decided to make some of those ideas a reality. With the help of a local artist, then Lincoln County Rodeo Queen Jireh Griffin, Jacobsen was able to start putting together her first logo designs: a cowboy riding a bucking tractor and an ear tag with the ‘509’ area code.

As more products were developed, Jacobsen said she went to ag shows, Christmas bazaars and other venues where she could introduce her products to the public.

“We did everything and some of the shows bombed,” she admitted with a laugh. “Some of the shows just weren’t full of my people.”

Jacobsen said she aims to have products that have a subtle ag theme but are cool and attractive to those in farming and ranching.

“There just isn’t a lot of swag for ag, so we are working to change that,” she said.

Products locally made, sourced

In addition to hats, hoodies, baby onesies and knit caps, the online store also features fun gift items like bacon jam, keyrings, coffee thermoses, jewelry and accessories.

The hats for the store are made by a business in Davenport and Jacobsen aims to work with local suppliers when possible.

When she does work with outside companies, it is often an opportunity to share about ag.

“When I was working on the logo that looks like an ear tag with the ‘509’ in it, a company told me my ‘bottle’ graphic was done,” Jacobsen related. “It gave me an opportunity to share with them about raising cattle and our lifestyle out here.”

Gathering feedback from the younger generation is also important to Jacobsen who cleverly ran a test market in her kitchen. When she started working on products, she casually left one of the new Ag Swag hats in the kitchen and was pleased when her then teenage boys said it was “sick”, suggesting the hats looked good.

Jacobsen and her husband, Dirk, have three boys ages 20, 18 and 3. One son, Luke, has already caught the ranching bug and made it a personal goal to have 20 head of cattle by the time he graduated this year. They celebrated his graduation and the achievement of that goal last week.