SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
People consume a lot of pumpkins this time of year - pumpkin bread, pumpkin lattes, and, of course, pumpkin pie. And most of the pumpkin in those pies comes from Morton, Illinois, population 17,000. In any given year, up to 95% of canned pumpkin in the U.S. comes from this area. Harvest Public Media's Joe Deacon has more.
JOE DEACON, BYLINE: On a cool and breezy fall morning, John Ackerman surveys the pumpkin crop at his farm just east of Morton.
JOHN ACKERMAN: It's been a good year for us. You know, normally, pumpkins like it relatively dry. I have been amazed at how great this year was for pumpkins.
DEACON: Ackerman's farm has been in his family since 1909. They originally focused on livestock, row crops, small grains. In the '80s, he shifted much of his acreage to pumpkins. That's when he was first contracted by the nearby Libby's processing plant in Morton, a town that has embraced an identity as pumpkin capital of the world.
ACKERMAN: As soon as you start raising pumpkins, you fall in love with them. It's a great way of life.
DEACON: In this area, there's an emphasis on foods people serve during the holidays, especially pumpkins.
CHRIS SETTI: It's a great story to tell. You know, one of my colleagues once said, Thanksgiving is brought to you by Greater Peoria.
DEACON: That's Chris Setti, the CEO of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council. By their figures, the Peoria region produces more than 440 million pounds of pumpkins each year. That's more than a third of the 1.2 billion produced by the six leading states according to the USDA. And a big reason for that is the Libby's plant, where they take pumpkins from field to can in 24 hours or less. Rachelle Malin is with Nestle, Libby's parent company.
RACHELLE MALIN: Over the last 16 years, we've harvested over 1.9 million tons of pumpkins. And then just last year, Libby sold enough cans in grocery stores to bake over 48 million pumpkin pies.
DEACON: Illinois is in what Ackerman calls the orange belt, where the climate and soil is ideal for growing pumpkins. Mohammad Babadoost is a professor of plant pathology at the University of Illinois. He specializes in fruit and vegetable crops.
MOHAMMAD BABADOOST: In Illinois, we grow at least three times more pumpkin than any other state. Pumpkin industry, in my calculation, is over $200 million industry in Illinois.
DEACON: In Morton, each September, they hold an annual four-day pumpkin festival that attracts 75,000 people. Mayor Jeff Kaufman says pumpkin is just about everything in his town.
JEFF KAUFMAN: Next year, Libby's will be in Morton for 100 years. So it's very important. I mean, they have 200 employees when they're canning and everything, and they support our stores and shops, gas stations.
DEACON: Kaufman says, almost anywhere you look, you'll see pumpkins.
KAUFMAN: We just painted our water tower, a new logo. And the very next day I was already hearing compliments, and I had one lady wanted - demanded the other one get painted. I said, well, we're going to let the paint, you know, wear out just a little bit more.
DEACON: At Ackerman's farm, roughly 30,000 pumpkins are handpicked each year. For several weeks each fall, visitors flock to his farms stand to choose the perfect pumpkin from among more than 100 different varieties, everything from giant orange types for carving to tiny white ornamentals that fit in the palm of your hand.
ACKERMAN: There's something iconically beautiful about looking over a pumpkin field when they're ripe, and it just shows the fruits of your labor.
DEACON: Ackerman gazes over the array of colors dotting his pumpkin patch. He says, once November ends, he'll soon start thinking about planting next year's pumpkins in May. For NPR News, I'm Joe Deacon in Morton, Illinois.
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