Let’s see a vignette of Delta’s farming history.
The above photo from 1915 shows a threshing scene on Charlie Arthur’s farm, located on the west side of Arthur Drive and north of 28th Avenue.
Arthur is with his family and friends on top of a pile of bagged grain, likely oats.
A steam tractor is on the right with a threshing machine on the left. The long belt to drive the threshing can also be seen on the right, while a straw stack is to the left but out of the picture.
In Delta over the decades, there’s been changes to the agricultural land base and fluctuations in crops and livestock grown and raised.
Delta currently has approximately 22,240 acres (9,000) hectares of land in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), which was created in 1973, corresponding to 50 per cent of its total land base, while approximately 75 per cent of the ALR land in Delta is actively used for farming.
