Agriculture is an important part of Maryland's economy.
The US state of Maryland has large areas of fertile agricultural land in its coastal and Piedmont zones, though this land use is being encroached upon by urbanization. Agriculture is oriented to dairy farming (especially in foothill and piedmont areas) for nearby large city milksheads, plus specialty perishable horticulture crops, such as cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, tomatoes, melons, squash, and peas (Source:USDA Crop Profiles).
Slavery and indentured servitude were critical elements of the development of colonial agriculture in Maryland. The first documented Africans were brought to Maryland in 1642, as 13 slaves at St. Mary's City, the first English settlement in the Province.[1] Slave labor made possible the export-driven plantation economy. The English observer William Strickland wrote of agriculture in Virginia and Maryland in the 1790s:
Nothing can be conceived more inert than a slave; his unwilling labour is discovered in every step he takes; he moves not if he can avoid it; if the eyes of the overseer be off him, he sleeps. The ox and horse, driven by the slave, appear to sleep also; all is listless inactivity; all motion is evidently compulsory.[2]
Marylanders might agree in principle that slavery could and should be abolished, but they were slow to achieve it statewide. Although the need for slaves had declined with the shift away from tobacco culture, and slaves were being sold to the Deep South, slavery was still too deeply embedded into Maryland society for the wealthiest whites to give it up voluntarily on a wide scale. Wealthy planters exercised considerable economic and political power in the state. Slavery did not end until after the Civil War.[1]
The southern counties of the western shoreline of Chesapeake Bay are warm enough to support a tobaccocash crop zone, which has existed since early Colonial times, but declined greatly after a state government buy-out in the 1990s.[citation needed]
There is also a large automated chicken-farming sector in the state's southeastern part; Salisbury is home to Perdue Farms. Maryland's food-processing plants are the most significant type of manufacturing by value in the state.[citation needed]
Much of the phytoplasma research here in the 1990s was conducted by the Jomantiene group at USDA ARS Beltsville.[7] This includes the first detection of both Clover Yellow Edge and STRAWB2 in this crop here.[7] This is also the first report of STRAWB2 anywhere outside of Florida.[7]
Black Root Rot is common here.[8] This is a disease with an uncertain etiology thought to involve several combined pathogens.[8]
Farming suffers from weeds as anywhere else, including an unusual multiply resistant ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) found by Rousonelos et al., 2012 with both ALS- and PPO-resistances[10] and which by 2016 had developed a third, EPSP resistance.[11] This ragweed population is a drag on soybean cultivation and, as of May 7, 2022[update], is the worst multiresistant weed problem in the state.[11]
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