ORLANDO, Fla - With Halloween just a few weeks away, it’s time to get into the holiday spirit by carving a pumpkin - but that may look a little different this year as prices continue to rise on spooky season essentials.
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“People want pumpkins earlier than we had historically had them,” said Raghella Scavuzzo, Associate Director of Food Systems Development, Illinois Farm Bureau. “I have pumpkins [pumpkin farms] in northern Illinois that really struggled this season and saw low crop yields and couldn’t get that replant.”
Over the last several years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said pumpkins have slowly gotten more expensive according to Yahoo News.
In 2020, the USDA said the price for a pumpkin was about $4.00. In 2023, that number climbed to around $5.50, and in 2026 the prices are on the higher end of $6.20.
In 2025, the average price for a pumpkin actually dropped, with an extra large pumpkin costing approximately $5.99.
READ: Halloween Discounts: Retail stores slash prices on scary props and pumpkins
So, why are we seeing the increase in price for the ghoulish gourds? Extreme heat and the rising cost in diesel.
Pumpkin farmers in Texas at Western Belle Farm said their pumpkin crop was almost wiped out from the extreme heat.
“We actually had no rainfall for 77 days,” said Western Belle Co-Owner, Taylor Huffman in an interview with ABC. “Unfortunately, we basically pumped our almost 1-acre stock tank dry trying to keep everything alive through the heat and the lack of rain.”
To offset the loss, the Huffman said the farm trucked in the needed pumpkins but then the price of diesel increased leading to another challenge.
“Our diesel bill is almost double from what we were spending last fall,” Huffman said.
For Scavuzzo, who lives in a state that is the biggest producer in pumpkins, it’s still a been a decent year for pumpkin production despite the challenges farms have experienced.
“It’s going to ultimately depend on where you’re purchasing your pumpkins if you’re going to see that reflect in your costs,” according to Scavuzzo.
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