On a cool, windy fall morning, John Ackerman surveys a pumpkin patch dotted with varying shades of orange, white, and yellow. He checks which ones are ready to be picked.

Although the growing season started a little too wet, the harvest looks good.

“Normally pumpkins like it relatively dry,” Ackerman said. “I was amazed at how great this year was for pumpkins.”

Ackerman’s farm, just east of Morton, Illinois, has been in his family since the early 1900s and was originally focused on livestock, small grains and row crops. In the 1980s, he focused primarily on pumpkins after signing a contract with the nearby Libby’s factory in Morton.

“As soon as you start raising pumpkins, you fall in love with them,” he said. “It’s a great way of life.”

Morton is the epicenter of pumpkins in the United States, supplying up to 95% of the nation’s canned pumpkin and 85% of the world’s canned pumpkin. This is due to the area’s dark, rich soil, as well as its location in the “Orange Belt,” as Ackerman calls it. “You know, not too far north because they have too short a growing season,” he said, “but not so far south because they have a lot of humidity and disease.”

Jim Pres

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Harvest public media

Pumpkin capital of the world

The area around Peoria, Illinois is home to two large pumpkin processing plants. There is Seneca Foods in Princeville, about 25 miles northwest of Peoria, and Libby’s in Morton, about 15 miles east.

“It’s a great story to tell,” said Chris Setti, CEO of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council. “As one of my colleagues once said, ‘Thanksgiving is brought to you by Greater Peoria.’ » »

According to council figures, the Peoria area produces more than 220,000 tons of pumpkins each year.

“Not only is it important to people who work and to people who grow pumpkins, and to people who know how to grow pumpkins, but it’s an important nickname,” Setti said. “We love being the ‘Pumpkin Capital of the World’.”

The pumpkins most often used in foods like pumpkin pie aren’t actually orange. The Dickinson variety of pumpkin – an oblong, cream-colored pumpkin – is the one most commonly found in canned goods.

All of these pumpkins are important to the local and national economy.

Illinois produced about 690 million pounds of pumpkins in 2023, more than the other five pumpkin-producing states combined, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mohammad Babadoost is a professor of plant pathology at the University of Illinois, specializing in vegetable and fruit crops. He says Illinois’ soil and climate are ideal for growing pumpkins, which has a huge impact on the state’s agricultural economy.

“In Illinois, we grow at least three times as many pumpkins as any other state,” Babadoost said. “Once I calculated it, the pumpkin industry — by my calculations — is a $200 million-plus industry in Illinois.”

More than 90 percent of Libby’s pumpkins are grown within a 45-mile radius of its Morton facility, according to Rachelle Malin, regional environmental specialist for Nestlé, Libby’s parent company. This proximity allowed the company to establish a partnership with its farmers throughout the process.

“Many of them have been supplying us with multi-generational farms for years,” she said.

Morton’s agricultural team helps growers identify the best fields, then provides proprietary pumpkin seeds and technical assistance.

“Once the seeds are planted, the agricultural team works with growers to continually monitor the health of the soil, the climate and our pumpkins throughout the growing season and harvest,” Malin said.

The company also works to help farmers incorporate more environmentally friendly practices into their fields, Malin said, such as cover crops, reduced tillage and more precise fertilizer application.

Jim Pres

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Harvest public media

“Pumpkin is about everything”

Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Libby’s factory in Morton.

“It’s very important,” Mayor Jeff Kaufman said. “They have 200 employees in canning and everything, and they support our stores and our stores and our gas stations.

Kaufman said the plant is the largest customer for municipal gas and water utilities, helping to maintain the city’s infrastructure. And there is also a tourist component. The annual Morton Pumpkin Festival attracts 75,000 people over four days each September.

“I go to the parade every year and throw out 330 pounds of candy. The parade route is at least four houses longer than in recent years, and people are several rows on either side,” he said.

The mayor said they recently painted one of the city’s water towers with a new pumpkin logo and fielded a request to do the same with a second water tower.

“The pumpkin is everything about Morton,” he said.

Not all pumpkin growers sell to canneries.

A few miles west of town, Nic Roth raises pumpkins on more than 20 acres. The Roth Pumpkin Patch has primarily been providing ornamental pumpkins “to get people in the mood for fall” since 2016, Roth said.

He grows around forty different varieties which are then put on sale at his stand on site. The pumpkin patch also offers hayrides and a corn maze, as well as a boutique.

“We have a few farm animals here, a few goats, a few sheep, a few chickens. And we just have a few games, a few slides,” Roth said. “It’s for families to have a good time here.”

Joe Deacon

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Harvest public media

John Ackerman sometimes sells his pumpkins to Libby’s, but he grows 160 varieties of pumpkins at his farm, many of which are for those who visit his stand for 10 weeks each fall. This year, he hopes to hand-pick about 30,000 pumpkins.

“There’s something iconically beautiful about looking at a patch of pumpkins when they’re ripe,” he said. “It just shows the fruits of your labor.”

This story was produced in partnership with Harvest public mediaa collaboration between public media editorial offices in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.