The year-over-year change in rental prices leaped from a recent low of 1.8% in Q2 2021 to 8.6% in Q2 2023. Now, nine states have median market rents topping $2,000 per month. Here are the states and metros with the highest rent prices in the nation. Click for more.U.S. Cities With the Highest Rent Prices
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Yeti products almost never go on sale, but right now, in a rare turn of events, you can score major discounts on the brand’s most popular items during Amazon’s massive Black Friday sale that ends on Cyber Monday (Nov. 27). Now is the time to buy quality drinkware that keeps beverages cold and hot for hours on end for less.
More Can’t-Miss Black Friday 2023 Deals:
Long past its painful peak, inflation in the United States may be heading steadily back toward its pre-pandemic levels, without the need for further interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
Such a scenario became more likely, if hardly guaranteed, after Nov. 14’s surprisingly tame report on consumer prices for October. The Labor Department’s data showed a broad-based easing of inflation across most goods and services. The price of gas? Down. Appliances? Down. Autos? Down. Same for airfares, hotel rooms and doctors’ fees.
Overall inflation didn’t rise from September to October, the first time that consumer prices collectively haven’t budged from one month to another in more than a year. Compared with a year earlier, prices rose 3.2% in October, the smallest such rise since June, though still above the Fed’s 2% inflation target.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation was just 0.2% last month, slightly below the pace of the previous two months. Measured year over year, core prices rose 4% in October, down from 4.1% in September, the smallest rise in two years.
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“The inflation fever has broken,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “Rising petroleum production is holding down gas prices, house prices are rising more slowly after mortgage rates surged in 2023 and rents are also rising more gradually” as more apartment buildings are completed.
October’s milder-than-expected price figures make it much less likely that the Fed will impose another rate hike. Many economists now say that the Fed’s most likely next move will be to cut rates, likely sometime next year, though that would depend on whether inflation continues to cool.
What’s driving inflation lower?
A major factor has been a big improvement in the supply of many things — workers, housing and components for manufactured goods.
Millions of Americans have come off the sidelines in the past year and flooded back into the workforce, seeking and (mostly) finding jobs. Immigration has increased, too, and with it more people looking for work. With more hires available, businesses haven’t had to raise wages as much to fill jobs, thereby easing the pressure on those businesses to raise their prices.
At the same time, the largest number of new apartment buildings nationwide in decades are being completed, a trend that is helping slow rent increases. Rental costs, after a spike in September, rose at a much more gradual pace last month.
Rents and other housing costs are likely to keep coming down, economists say, as the cost of new leases continues to fall, according to real-time data providers such as Zillow. Those lower prices show up in the government’s data with a lag.
And the supply chains that were badly snarled during the pandemic have pretty much unwound. An ample availability of products, parts and components help keep a lid on their prices. Automakers, for example, are having a much easier time finding semiconductors.
Partly as a result, new car prices declined last month, defying fears that the now-settled autoworkers’ strike would reduce dealers’ inventories and send prices higher. Used car prices, too, are down. They fell for a fifth straight month in October and have tumbled 7% from a year ago.
“We’re finally undoing that and getting the benefits,” Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said Tuesday in remarks at the Detroit Economic Club.
Separately, consumers are widely expected to pull back on spending after a blowout summer, with credit card debts — and delinquencies — rising and average savings falling. Cooler demand should force businesses to compete more on price.
Gas costs have kept falling this month, with the national average price at the pump averaging $3.35 Tuesday, down 42 cents from a year earlier. Those prices declines could push overall inflation, measured year-over-year, below 3% by December.
Aren’t things still pretty expensive?
Yes, inflation is still painfully apparent in many areas. They include auto and health insurance and some groceries, like beef and bread.
The average cost of auto insurance, which jumped 1.9% just from September to October, has soared nearly 20% from a year earlier. As new and used vehicles have grown more expensive, so has the cost of insuring them. And health insurance prices rose 1.1% last month, though that was largely due to a change in the government’s methodology.
But even as overall price increases slow, it doesn’t mean inflation is reversing or that most prices are falling back to pre-pandemic levels. The consumer price index, the most widely followed measure of inflation, remains about 20% higher than it was before the pandemic.
Milk prices, which have ticked down compared with the past year, are still 23% higher than they were pre-pandemic. Ground beef prices are 31% higher. Gas prices, despite a steep decline from a year ago, are still 46% higher than before the pandemic.
Many economists say a key reason why so many Americans hold a gloomy view of the economy despite very low unemployment and steady hiring is that these prices — on items that they buy regularly — remain much higher than they were three years ago.
Are paychecks keeping up?
Barring a deep and painful recession, prices aren’t going to fall to their pre-pandemic levels. Instead, economists say, Americans’ wages need to rise to help pay for the higher costs.
Wages and salaries trailed inflation in 2021 and 2022, exacerbating the pain of higher prices. Yet this year, as inflation has cooled, average pay has pulled ahead of inflation. By most measures, average paychecks, adjusted for inflation, are back to where they were before the pandemic.
Yet that essentially means that Americans, on average, have had scant real pay increases compared with three years ago. And while average pay may be back to pre-pandemic levels, many people have received below-average pay raises and are still behind inflation.
How might the Federal Reserve respond?
The Fed will likely welcome last Tuesday’s report as evidence of further progress toward getting inflation back to its target of 2%. Fed officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, are considering whether their benchmark rate is high enough to quell inflation or if they need to impose another increase in coming months.
Powell said recently that Fed officials were “not confident” that rates were sufficiently high to tame inflation. The Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times in the past year and a half, to about 5.4%, the highest level in 22 years.
But the central bank has raised its key rate just once since May. Since its last meeting on Nov. 1, a government report showed that hiring cooled in October compared with September, and wage growth slowed, thereby easing pressure on companies to raise prices in the coming months.
Adams, the Comerica economist, said he thinks the Fed’s most likely next move will be to cut rates, likely by mid-2024.
The Fed’s rate hikes have increased the costs of mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and many forms of business borrowing, part of a concerted drive to slow growth and cool inflation pressures. The central bank is trying to achieve a “soft landing” — raising borrowing costs just enough to curb inflation without tipping the economy into a deep recession.
Said Eric Winograd, chief economist at AB Global, an asset management firm: “They look like they are on course to generate a soft landing. There’s no guarantee that they will actually manage to accomplish it. But right now, that’s the story that the data are telling.”
There’s never a Black Friday discount when a piece of Nebraska farmland hits the market in 2023, be it a fertile Platte River Valley field or a vast swath of Sandhills pastureland.
The market’s hot. And corporate farms, both in-state and out, are dipping into their deep pockets to claim increasingly pricey agricultural land.
The nine buyers who spent the most on Nebraska farmland in the past five years are all corporate farming operations, real estate developers or investment firms, a Flatwater Free Press analysis found.
Jeff Burnett runs one of them. His Wyoming-based operation recently paid $20 million for nearly 28,000 acres of ground on the Sandhills’ southern edge. That purchase made his company the second-largest buyer of Nebraska land, by acre, in the past five years.
Ranch hand Mike Goodman, left, and ranch manager Frank Thompson ride through the prairie grass on a ranch located north of Keystone, Nebraska. The ranch is owned by Jeff Burnett of Wyoming, whose operation recently paid $20 million for nearly 28,000 acres on the Sandhills’ southern edge.
And, increasingly, small farmers like Bill Alward strike out. Alward moved to his wife’s native Nebraska a few years ago and started a small operation raising cattle and hogs near Fort Calhoun.
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He’s trying to expand. He can’t afford it.
“There were some tracts that were available when we first moved here, and I kind of regret not pursuing those because now it’s completely off the table,” Alward says. “I mean, the price per acre … it’s insanity.”
The average price of Nebraska farmland has shot up 41% since 2018, to a record $3,835 per acre, according to a University of Nebraska-Lincoln annual survey.
The buyers of that land — especially the biggest chunks — include multinational corporations, out-of-state corporate farms and out-of-state investors, according to five years of land sales gathered by a UNL journalism class and analyzed by the Flatwater Free Press.
Seven of the top 10 buyers of land are located outside Nebraska, the analysis shows.
Together, those seven out-of-state buyers spent $246 million.
Investor-driven purchases, to some degree, contribute to the overall price increase, said Adam Pavelka, a Hastings broker and farm manager for farm real estate agency Agri Affiliates.
The Flatwater Free Press spent months analyzing 12,700 sales of Nebraska ag land made in the open market between 2018 and 2022, then navigating a maze of limited liability companies that often hide the actual buyer. Among the findings:
The single biggest buyer of ag land by acre in Nebraska is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, through a nonprofit tied to a P.O. box in Utah.
North Carolina-based Great Plains Farms spent the most money — $65 million — on land. Belltown Farms, No. 2 in money spent, is an organic farming company with operations in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Texas.
Gov. Jim Pillen’s company Platte Center West was among the top spenders after acquiring hog farms. The sale amount included buildings and other infrastructure in addition to the land.
Some farmland purchased is no longer farmland. The sales show real estate developers buying ag land to build homes and apartments, and companies like Facebook and Google spending millions to build data centers.
Oft-rumored foreign buyers like China did not appear in the data, but buyers from Canada and subsidiaries of several multinational corporations, including shipping behemoth ULINE, are among the top buyers of Nebraska land.
There are caveats to these findings. The sales data, compiled from county records and provided by the Nebraska Department of Revenue, contains errors. The records sometimes list the incorrect sale amount and are sometimes duplicated. Flatwater Free Press reporters manually corrected data entry errors when possible.
But the data still offers insight into where these buyers are from.
Four of the five biggest buyers who acquired the most acres in open-market sales are giant, multistate operations headquartered in Utah, Wyoming, Wisconsin and North Dakota.
Out-of-state individuals and companies make up less than 10% of the total number of buyers of Nebraska land in the past five years. But out-of-state buyers are prominent at the highest levels: Nearly a third of the 100 buyers who bought the most land were people or companies from outside Nebraska.
This series, “Who’s Buying Nebraska?” will dive into massive farmland purchases by churches, foreign companies and notable buyers like billionaires Bill Gates and Ted Turner. It will seek to answer who’s buying land and why — and how these purchases shape the reality of modern Nebraska agriculture.
Spiraling land prices are, of course, good for sellers. But the reality is that many buyers who can afford to pay the highest farmland prices don’t themselves plant soybeans, brand cattle or harvest corn.
“Most people can get pretty much the same price for grain, but where competition plays out is who can bid most aggressively for land,” said Chuck Hassebrook, former director of the Center for Rural Affairs. “So it is the price of land that keeps ordinary folks out.”
For as long as there has been Nebraska farmland for sale, there have been land barons scooping it up.
William Scully, an Irishman and one of the original foreign owners of Nebraska land, bought up more than 65,000 acres of farmland in Gage and Nuckolls Counties in the 1880s. Starting in 1888, cattleman Bartlett Richards claimed, bought and, in some cases, illegally fenced an estimated 500,000 acres of Sandhills ranch land while co-founding the iconic Spade Ranch.
But for much of Nebraska’s history, it remained possible for residents to make a living on small plots of land that they owned and passed through generations.
Hooper-area farmer Sharon Thernes, 85, remembers her father raising a family of four children on 80 acres, growing crops and raising cows, chickens and pigs.
Today, she says, it would take 10 times as many acres to support a family that size. And the land would be lined exclusively with row crops, she said.
Technology spurred this transition to specialized monocropping and concentrated livestock production, says Bruce Johnson, retired UNL agricultural economics professor who started and ran the Nebraska Farm Real Estate Report survey for nearly 40 years. It’s one reason, he said, why farm and ranch operations are expanding in size while dwindling in number.
Johnson started noticing this trend toward bigger and fewer ag operations in the 1970s.
It accelerated during the 1980s farm crisis, as more and more farmers sold land amid plummeting crop prices. In the aftermath, some financial management companies began to specialize in farmland investment, wrote sociologist Madeleine Fairbairn in her book “Fields of Gold,” a history of farmland financialization.
Federal government reforms in the next decade provided a cushion for ag producers. It also reduced the risk of farmland as an investment, Johnson said.
Buying up farmland as an investment vehicle picked up steam after the 2008 financial crisis, Fairbairn wrote. Many investors now see it as a hedge against inflation.
In 1982, Nebraska voters passed a law that reined in corporations’ ability to own ag land. But in 2007, a federal circuit court struck down that law, known as Initiative 300. Nebraska now has virtually no restrictions on corporate ownership of land — fewer restrictions than the seven other states that at one point passed an Initiative 300-like law, said Anthony Schutz, a UNL professor specializing in agricultural law.
“Absent some legislative change or something of that nature, I think the investor pool is gonna continue,” said Pavelka.
These investors often hire local helpers — sometimes farm managers like Pavelka — or rent out the ground.
It’s common for beginning farmers to start by renting land. But for Alward, it’s proven a challenge to find the 150 acres he’s looking to lease next year for his cattle and pigs. Having pastures next to each other would save him serious time. Owning those pastures would over the long haul save him money.
Bill Alward, 37, feeds his hogs earlier this month at his farm near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. Alward thinks his operation could run smoother and ultimately be more profitable if he had more land but can’t afford it.
His dilemma is one understood by many younger American farmers.
About 10,000 young farmers and ranchers surveyed nationwide reported owning slightly more than 80 acres on average, according to a 2022 survey. Nearly half don’t own any land, instead working as managers or hired hands.
Owning land is key, largely because it helps agricultural producers withstand market turbulence, said Hassebrook.
“Even if you’re not super wealthy, that ownership of land … becomes an enormous value to you in weathering the dry years and low price years,” he said.
It can pay for a lifetime, or several. Ranch land is often bought in large chunks and added to existing ranches, Johnson said. That land may stay in a family for generations.
“As you have larger-sized holdings, the … available land to buy and the ownership transition becomes less and less,” Johnson said.
Burnett isn’t looking to sell anytime soon.
His Wyoming-based operation uses the 28,000 acres in Keith and Arthur Counties to graze cattle from spring until fall. The Sandhills is in a different weather belt than other land, and thus offers him drought protection.
A ranch road cuts through the grass of a Nebraska Sandhills ranch owned and run by a Wyoming-based ranching operation.
Technology is another big reason buying large amounts of Nebraska land makes sense for his business, he said. Forty years ago, hauling animals hundreds of miles would have been unimaginable. Now he receives iPhone alerts when his livestock water tanks at the Nebraska ranch run dry.
He wants to make sure he’s building an enterprise with opportunities for the next generation of ranchers in his family.
“We’re long-term players,” said Burnett. “For the cards that I can see today, I would say we’d be more apt to be on the buyer side than on the seller side.”
He doesn’t see himself as an absentee owner, living just across the Wyoming border and visiting often.
The change in Nebraska’s farmland ownership structure, experts say, can have a long-lasting impact on the environment, food production, local economies and the lives and livelihoods of rural residents.
In some eastern Nebraska counties, more than half the farmland is titled to an absentee owner, Johnson said. The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture landownership survey shows that a third of Nebraska agricultural landlords have never farmed.
In neighboring Iowa, 27% of agricultural land purchases last year were connected to an investor buyer, up from 21% in 2019, according to an Iowa State University survey.
These absentee owners do contribute to the local property tax base. But they don’t live in the community, shop at the grocery store or send their children to the local school.
Instead, they extract value from the land and send the profits elsewhere, which can “impair the health of rural communities,” said Jessica Shoemaker, a UNL law professor.
“When an owner is instead an investor making decisions in a boardroom in Chicago or New York, we worry that … (they) may not care as much about local impacts,” Shoemaker said.
A higher rate of absent ag landowners in an area corresponds to lower local employment rate, a 2021 USDA report found.
It’s often hard — but not impossible — for midsized Nebraska farmers to buy land.
In 2020, Hooper farmer Sharon Thernes took out loans to buy 230 acres of land she had rented for more than 50 years.
Sharon Thernes, 85, farms with her family near Hooper, Nebraska. Thernes and her late husband, Louie Thernes, started farming here in the late 1950s.
Thernes’ grandson Tyler now runs the day-to-day operations on her farm. He also recently bought 74 acres himself.
Thernes has spent a lifetime heading out on the family farm “at two o’clock in the morning to see if the cow is having her calf and carry it to the house to warm it up.”
She’s not optimistic that her family will retain that full control for many more generations to come.
“Eventually … it will be huge conglomerates that are owning the farm,” Thernes said. “And our grandchildren will be employees.”
The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.
Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of November 2023
Jaye’real Coppage 12, dibbles a basketball in the gym at the Salvation Army Omaha North Worship & Service Center located at 2424 Pratt St, on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Paint from the mural on the wall is peeling.
Atlas Swan, 3, helps his mother, Eryn Swan’s plants on the porch of their Bemis Park home on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023.
Kids play basketball in the gym at the Salvation Army’s North Corps Community Center, 2424 Pratt St., on Nov. 9.
North Dakota State’s Ryan Sletten (24) tries to stop a Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner (11) dunk at CHI Health Center on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Police escort a truck carrying the Durham Museum Christmas heads north on I480 toward Woolworth Avenue on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.
A Union Pacific climbs out of a tree after securing it to a crane on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.
A sign warning motorists about lane restrictions on Dodge Street at 76th Street on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023.
Creighton’s Steven Ashworth (1) celebrates a three-point basket against North Dakota State at CHI Health Center on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
North Dakota State’s Ryan Sletten (24) tries to stop a Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner (11) dunk at CHI Health Center on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Nebraska’s Ty Robinson (9) walks off the filed following the college football game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. Maryland won the game 13-10.
Nebraska’s Blaise Gunnerson (97) stretches out to try an block a pass from Maryland’s Taulia Tagovailoa (3) to Maryland’s Roman Hemby (24) during the first half of a college football game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023.
Nebraska’s Harper Murray (27) watches as Nebraska’s Merritt Beason (13) misses the ball in the Northwestern vs. Nebraska college volleyball match at the Devaney Center in Lincoln on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023.
Brooke Holloway, Matthew McMullen Bill Holloway and Cindy Holloway cross the Red Cedar river on their way to Spartan Stadium prior to a college football game between the Nebraska Huskers and the Michigan State Spartans in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Nebraska and Michigan State fans react differently on a penalty call against Michigan State during the first half of a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Nebraska’s Omar Brown (12) sits in a hall before playing Michigan State in a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Nebraska’s Heinrich Haarberg (10), Nebraska’s Jeff Sims (7) and Nebraska’s Chubba Purdy (12) have a moment in a hall before playing Michigan State in a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
A member of the Michigan State marching band drums upside down during the second half of a college football game at Spartan in East Lansing, Mich. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.
Omaha Skutt raises their trophy following the Norris vs. Omaha Skutt Nebraska State Volleyball Class B Championship match at the Devaney Center in Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023. Omaha Skutt won the title in three sets.
Sumner-Eddyville-Miller’s Katelynn Reiter (6) serves the ball in the O’Neill St. Mary’s vs. Sumner-Eddyville-Miller NSAA Class D-1 volleyball state quarterfinal match at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.
At the beginning of the ad—fittingly set to Ed Sheeran‘s sentimental song, “Photograph”—an animated couple sits on a park bench watching another couple play with their young child. A flier for a “Student Exchange Program” then blows onto their laps, and they immediately decide to host a student in their home.
The Immanuel Lutheran Women’s Guild will be hosting its annual Leaf and Holly Bazaar at the Immanuel Lutheran School, 1930 N. Bowman, Danville, on Tuesday, November 14.
Doors will be open from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Organizers encourage attendees to be there early for the greatest selection of tasty homemade pies, breads, rolls, cookies, and candies at the Country Store. The ever-popular Attic Treasures booth will be laden with all things vintage, ornate, collectable, tiny, large, irresistible, and of course, inexpensive.
The crafty ladies have created numerous items, either wearable, functional, practical, pretty, cuddly, or all of these in one. Look for them at the Art’s and Craft’s booth.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a holiday bazaar without Christmas items and this year’s festive collection is huge. If you like country or modern, elegant, or simplistic, the Thanksgiving/Christmas Shoppe has it all.
As usual, the men have been busy with their shop tools and their skills are evident in the wooden toys, bowls, and décor they’ll have at their Woodworking booth. The Silent Auction has an array of unique articles including lovely fall baskets, cleverly carved décor, detailed Christmas items, and “I Promised You a Rose Garden”, the 2023 hand quilted, queen-size quilt and throw pillows.
Serving for the BBQ pulled-pork luncheon runs from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for dining in as well as carryout. Your hearty meal will also include cheesy potato casserole, creamy coleslaw, your choice of cranberry salad or baked apples, plus homemade pie or cake and a beverage for $12.
Those attending will help the church in its efforts to serve the community, our country, and friends abroad with the annual fundraiser.
Local restaurant The Local in Covington will be hosting a visit from America’s Best Restaurants (ABR) this month.
America’s Best Restaurants, a national media and marketing company focusing on bringing attention to local, independently-owned restaurants, will bring its ABR Roadshow to the restaurant on Friday, November 10.
Popular dishes will be highlighted, along with an extensive on-camera interview with owners Chelsea Freeman and Stephanie Lober about the restaurant’s special place in the community. The episode will be aired extensively on social media channels at a later date.
As the name implies, The Local prides itself on buying locally; everything from food to the flowers on the tables. The main message Freeman and Lober wish to convey is that they are unique in the area to have this business model, and they make it work.
“Sustainability is super important to us,” Lober says. “Not only do we buy the products locally, but [we also want) to make less of a footprint. All of our beef comes within five miles of here. We grow hydroponics for the produce; in the summer months, even more. We can almost sustain ourselves with produce.”
The restaurant has a black-and-white color scheme in the dining area, and the local aspect of their venture is further reflected in the wall art, all for sale, from area artists.
Popular food items that may be featured on the episode include the fried goat cheese appetizer, drizzled with local honey, and the butter cheese, flambeed tableside in a skillet and served with naan bread. The menu also offers salads, soups, handhelds, entrees and desserts.
America’s Best Restaurants will be filming on location on Friday from 9 a.m. to noon Eastern time. The restaurant’s finished episode premiere date will be announced on their Facebook page and will be featured on America’s Best Restaurants’ website at americasbestrestaurants.com/rests/indiana/the-local.
Restaurants featured on the ABR Roadshow are found through customer nominations or by a restaurant applying to be featured at www.americasbestrestaurants.com.
The Local is open Wednesday through Saturday, and is located at 1120 Liberty St., Covington. For more information visit www.thelocalcovington.com.
Results of pumpkin harvest so far in Illinois, the nation’s leading producer of canned pumpkins, point to an ample supply of the fall and holiday favorite.
This, despite drought conditions in May and June that returned to many areas in August and threatened both the commercial and ornamental pumpkin crops in many areas of the state.
“With the drought we were in, we were a week or two from losing a lot (of the pumpkin crop),” John Ackerman, owner/operator of Ackerman Family Farms in Morton, told FarmWeek. “But we got rain in late June, and it made all the difference. We feel very blessed.”
Ackerman grew about 160 varieties of ornamental pumpkins this year. He also previously raised canning pumpkins.
“We are having a good harvest,” he said. “A few varieties didn’t handle the drought well, but the vast majority came in above expectations.”
David Uhlman, a farmer from Tremont, grew food-grade pumpkins this season under contract for Nestle Libby’s in Morton. The company’s plant in Morton, the “pumpkin capital of the world,” produces about 85% of canned pumpkins nationwide each year.
“Overall, for the hot weather and lack of rain, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for. There are many blessings out here,” Uhlman told FarmWeek. “We had a couple fields (of commercial pumpkins). The rain made a difference this year in the tonnage of pumpkins harvested.”
One of Uhlman’s pumpkin fields averaged about 21.5 tons per acre while another that received more timely showers made about 32 tons per acre.
“I’m pretty pleased. Good weather continues for harvest, so a lot (of the pumpkin crop) is harvested already,” he said.
All pumpkins produced by Nestle Libby’s, including the Dickinson pumpkin variety Libby’s special seed were bred from, are a variety of squash belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family or gourd family (which also includes melons and cucumbers), according to the company’s website.
Libby’s famously uses nothing but 100% pumpkin in its canned products that appear on grocery shelves across the nation.
“I’ve heard the yields are average to slightly above average (for the lighter-colored, food-grade pumpkins, not to be confused with ornamental varieties or Jack-o-lanterns),” Ackerman said.
“Pumpkins like it dry and, even though it was exceptionally dry, some spots caught very timely rains,” he continued. “I’ve heard of no processing pumpkin fields that are a disaster.”
Elsewhere, Steve Buxton, who runs Buxton’s Garden Farm & Flower Shop near Sullivan with his wife, Paula, also reported quality crops of both ornamental and processing pumpkins in his area.
“Commercial and ornamental pumpkins look excellent,” Buxton said. “I know there are some areas that didn’t have good luck with pumpkins. But we got rain late and sometimes pumpkins respond to that.”
The market helps distribute ornamental pumpkins around the state as farmers who have a bountiful crop often sell a portion of it to farmers and markets in areas that experienced a short crop. Most pumpkin farms and local markets, therefore, should have an ample supply this season.
This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.
Please join the Elko Area Chamber for Business Before Hours on Thursday, Nov. 9 with Coldwell Banker Commercial Excel at 392 5th Street starting at 8 a.m.
Attendees can expect to enjoy an assortment of delicious food items catered by McAdoo’s, get their morning coffee fix, and enjoy a free entry for a chance to win some incredible raffle prizes.
Business Before Hours is a free, open to the public event that provides the opportunity to network in-order-to create/maintain business and community relationships, generate referrals and learn about upcoming events in our community.
Coldwell Banker Excel has launched a commercial real estate division known as Coldwell Banker Commercial Excel, providing commercial real estate services and support for sales and leasing of commercial properties, as well as representation of owners and occupiers, across the Elko County market.
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Kaci Lynch is the affiliated company’s broker/owner, and Sierra Petersen has been named the managing broker of the commercial branch.
“We are pleased to have Kaci Lynch and her team expand their business by opening a Coldwell Banker Commercial franchise,” said Dan Spiegel, SVP and managing director of Coldwell Banker Commercial, “Kaci’s team of professionals are dedicated to exceptional client service, very involved in the local community and bring unique expertise to the brand.”
Kaci Lynch said, “We are very excited about this new phase in our company’s development. Coldwell Banker Commercial is a global name with exceptional tools and connections to assist us in providing the best-in-class customer service to the Elko area.”
For more information, call 775-389-5016 or visit cbcworldwide.com. (Each office is independently owned and operated.)
We hope to see you there, and for any questions, please contact the Chamber at 775-738-7135.
The Immanuel Lutheran Women’s Guild will host their annual Leaf and Holly Bazaar at the Immanuel Lutheran School, 1930 N. Bowman Ave., on Tuesday, Nov. 14.
Doors will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Be there early for the greatest selection of tasty homemade pies, breads, rolls, cookies, and candies at the Country Store. The ever-popular Attic Treasures booth will be laden with all things vintage, ornate, collectable, tiny, large, irresistible, and of course, inexpensive.
The crafty ladies have created numerous items either wearable, functional, practical, pretty, cuddly, or all of these in one. Look for them at the Art’s and Craft’s booth.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a holiday bazaar without Christmas items and this year’s festive collection is huge. If you like country or modern, elegant, or simplistic, the Thanksgiving/Christmas Shoppe has it all.
As usual, the men have been busy with their shop tools and their skills are evident in the wooden toys, bowls, and décor they’ll have for you at their Woodworking booth.
The Silent Auction has an array of unique articles including lovely fall baskets, cleverly carved décor, detailed Christmas items, and “I Promised You a Rose Garden,” the 2023 hand quilted, queen-size quilt and throw pillows.
Serving for the delicious, BBQ pulled-pork luncheon runs from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for dining in as well as carryout. The meal will also include cheesy potato casserole, creamy coleslaw, your choice of cranberry salad or baked apples, plus homemade pie or cake and a beverage for $12.
The public is asked to support the church in its efforts to serve the community, the country, and friends abroad with this annual fundraiser.
Free concert Sunday
Doc Ashton and the Root Canals will give a free concert starting at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday at St. James United Methodist Church, 504 N. Vermilion St.
Concert salutes vets
The 25th annual Salute to Veterans concert will begin at 6 p.m. on Nov. 9 in the Danville High School auditorium.
The DHS music department, including wind ensemble, orchestra and Madrigals, will perform.
The night will feature an “Armed Forces Salute” where each branch of the military will stand to be honored.
The Honor Guard will present the colors and students will narrate the evening.
The concert is free to the public.
Pick up pumpkins
Those who participated in the Hoopeston Public Library pumpkin decorating contest are asked to pick up their creations no later than Saturday.
Pumpkins left behind will be disposed of.
KRT fundraiser coming up
Support the Kickapoo Rail Trail at the upcoming KRT at Sleepy Creek event on Wednesday, Nov. 8 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Bid on silent auction items such as Fighting Illini Basketball tickets, condo rental in Nashville, Tennessee, and more.
Enjoy live music with the Live Jukebox Show with David Howie and dinner provided by Applewood Foods Catering.
Tickets are on sale now for $50/person or sponsor a table (10 seats) for $450 at https://onekrt.org/events.
The event will be held at the Dragonfly venue.
For more information, call 217-586-3360 or 217-442-1691. All proceeds from the event will be used for the continued development of the Kickapoo Rail Trail in Champaign and Vermilion County.
Annual fall dinner
The Covington Methodist Women will host their annual fall luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 3 at Covington United Methodist Church, 419 Washington St.
Prepared and served by the ladies of the church, the dinner has become a local tradition. The menu consists of chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, mock cranberry jello salad, roll and butter, dessert (Italian Cream or Texas Sheet Cake) and drink. Pickup and carry out dinners are available and can be pre-ordered.
Advance ticket may be purchased by texting the church at 765-793-2007. A member of the women’s group will return your call.
Proceeds from the sales of the dinner go to support local and area missions including: Covington Food Pantry, Women’s Resource Center, Home Springs Safe House, Buddy Bags, United Methodist Children’s Home, Lucille Raines Home, Danville Rescue Mission, just to mention a few.