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Pizza-Shaped Farm Draws Tourists with Organic Slice
Pizza-Shaped Farm Draws Tourists with Organic Slice
DOW, Ill. (AP)
Walt Gregory found a way to make dough harvesting pizza. The retired insurance
agent and his business partner have carved up quite a tourist draw near the
Mississippi River town of Alton, educating people with a half-acre circular plot
divided up like the slices of a huge pizza.
Walter Gregory's "R" Pizza Farm has slices of land where pizza ingredients are
grown or raised.
By Tom Gannam, AP
Each of the eight wedges represents something used on a pizza — from tomatoes
to peppers to herbs including rosemary and sage. Three goats represent milk and
Cleo the cow is symbolic of beef. Seven penned-in pigs illustrate pork.
The chickens pecking nearby? Eggs, of course.
"I enjoy it immensely, just to see the looks on people's faces and seeing some
people make the connection," Gregory said from his 3-year-old "R" Pizza Farm.
"A 62-year-old lady, standing with her husband, didn't know pepperoni came from
pigs."
Only a handful of such farms are believed to exist in the United States. However,
farmers increasingly are turning to inventive land use — cornfield mazes are
another example — to supplement their bottom lines. Illinois, which is among the
nation's leaders in pumpkin and horseradish production, is no exception.
The project seems to be working for Gregory and business partner Lynne Weis.
They expect their organic pizza "demonstration" farm to draw 5,000 to 6,000
visitors this year, far more than the 1,500 visitors in 2004 or the 300 the year
before that.
The two have a similar venture near Quincy, with plans for a third next spring near
Peoria.
"Word's getting out," Gregory said as he walked through the wedges, plucking
peppers and tomatoes along the way.
During tours offered from April through October, Gregory briefs guests about the
ingredients, then walks them through each slice. Afterward, there's pizza and soda
in a pizzeria inside a log cabin.
Most of the ingredients come from the farm and are organic, including the fennel
herb commonly used to flavor Italian sausage. Gregory still hopes to find a source
of organic cheese and is talking with an Amish slaughterhouse about supplying
organic pepperoni.
Gregory hopes to educate guests about organic growing. He makes no bones
about his opposition to corporations behind agricultural biotechnology or farmers
who use herbicide-resistant products he considers dangerous.
"Someone's got to stand against them. That's what I try to accomplish with the
pizza farm," said Gregory, who elsewhere on his spread grows asparagus,
zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, squash, pumpkins and corn.
Elizabeth Decker, a second-grade teacher in nearby Bethalto, can't seem to get
her fill of the farm. She has taken her classes, which typically number 20 students
and chaperoning parents, on the tour every year since the farm opened.
Decker said the place teaches kids firsthand what goes into a pizza, from harvest
to hearth.
"I think parents learn just as much as the children," she said.
Source: USA Today, 9/15/05
Contact Information:
R Pizza Farm
25873 State Hwy 3
Dow, IL 62022
Phone: 618-466-5950
DOW, Ill. (AP)
Walt Gregory found a way to make dough harvesting pizza. The retired insurance
agent and his business partner have carved up quite a tourist draw near the
Mississippi River town of Alton, educating people with a half-acre circular plot
divided up like the slices of a huge pizza.
Walter Gregory's "R" Pizza Farm has slices of land where pizza ingredients are
grown or raised.
By Tom Gannam, AP
Each of the eight wedges represents something used on a pizza — from tomatoes
to peppers to herbs including rosemary and sage. Three goats represent milk and
Cleo the cow is symbolic of beef. Seven penned-in pigs illustrate pork.
The chickens pecking nearby? Eggs, of course.
"I enjoy it immensely, just to see the looks on people's faces and seeing some
people make the connection," Gregory said from his 3-year-old "R" Pizza Farm.
"A 62-year-old lady, standing with her husband, didn't know pepperoni came from
pigs."
Only a handful of such farms are believed to exist in the United States. However,
farmers increasingly are turning to inventive land use — cornfield mazes are
another example — to supplement their bottom lines. Illinois, which is among the
nation's leaders in pumpkin and horseradish production, is no exception.
The project seems to be working for Gregory and business partner Lynne Weis.
They expect their organic pizza "demonstration" farm to draw 5,000 to 6,000
visitors this year, far more than the 1,500 visitors in 2004 or the 300 the year
before that.
The two have a similar venture near Quincy, with plans for a third next spring near
Peoria.
"Word's getting out," Gregory said as he walked through the wedges, plucking
peppers and tomatoes along the way.
During tours offered from April through October, Gregory briefs guests about the
ingredients, then walks them through each slice. Afterward, there's pizza and soda
in a pizzeria inside a log cabin.
Most of the ingredients come from the farm and are organic, including the fennel
herb commonly used to flavor Italian sausage. Gregory still hopes to find a source
of organic cheese and is talking with an Amish slaughterhouse about supplying
organic pepperoni.
Gregory hopes to educate guests about organic growing. He makes no bones
about his opposition to corporations behind agricultural biotechnology or farmers
who use herbicide-resistant products he considers dangerous.
"Someone's got to stand against them. That's what I try to accomplish with the
pizza farm," said Gregory, who elsewhere on his spread grows asparagus,
zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, squash, pumpkins and corn.
Elizabeth Decker, a second-grade teacher in nearby Bethalto, can't seem to get
her fill of the farm. She has taken her classes, which typically number 20 students
and chaperoning parents, on the tour every year since the farm opened.
Decker said the place teaches kids firsthand what goes into a pizza, from harvest
to hearth.
"I think parents learn just as much as the children," she said.
Source: USA Today, 9/15/05
Contact Information:
R Pizza Farm
25873 State Hwy 3
Dow, IL 62022
Phone: 618-466-5950