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Last year the extension Service at the request of Congress conducted a nationwide search of courthouse records in every rural county in the nation to determine the exact extent of foreigners’ purchase of land.
The surveyors looked for land transfers of 100 acres or more over an 18-month period, from Jan. 1, 1977 to June 30, 1978.
When the results of the survey were announced in January, politicians—and reporters—interpreted the figures in a wide variety of ways ranging from fear of disaster to welcome of opportunity, to evaluation of the activity in land acquisition as insignificant.
And the figures themselves, as quoted, didn’t always match.
In Washington, Rep. J. Kenneth Robinson (R-7th District, Va.) noted that a US Senate committee had released a report showing that 17,100 acres of Virginia farmland had been bought by foreign investors during the 18 months.
Robinson said that placed “Virginia 17th among the 50 states in the amount of farmlands acquired by aliens.”
(Last September, VPI & SU Dean W. R. Van Dresser of the Extension Service had notified US Sen. Herman Talmadge that county agents in the state had identified 15,350 acres in Virginia acquired by 12 “known” foreign purchasers in the same period.)
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