About MARBIDCO
Photo: Remsberg Inc.
Mission Of The Maryland Agricultural and Resource-Based Industry Development Corporation
MARBIDCO's mission is to help Maryland's farm, forestry, and seafood businesses achieve sustainability and profitability through the provision of targeted business assistance and financial services that helps retain existing resource-based industry production and commerce, promotes rural and urban-edge entrepreneurship and nurtures emerging food/feed/fiber industries.
Background
The Maryland Agricultural and Resource-Based Industry Development Corporation (MARBIDCO) offers assistance to qualifying farms and rural businesses in securing affordable capital and credit for equipment, commerical facilities, and real estate purchases (often by partenering with commerical lenders), and assists with rural working land preservation (by serving as a financial intermediary for state and local land conservation organizations).
Over a period of many years, Maryland’s agricultural, forestry, and seafood industries have been steadily declining while at the same time Maryland’s rural working landscapes have also been disappearing.
To help remedy this situation, in 2004 the Governor and Maryland General Assembly established the Maryland Agricultural and Resource-Based Industry Development Corporation (MARBIDCO) as a quasi-public corporation broadly authorized to:
- Develop agricultural industries and markets;
- Support appropriate commercialization of agricultural processes and technology;
- Assist with rural land preservation efforts; and
- Alleviate the shortage of nontraditional capital and credit available at affordable interest rates for investment in agricultural and resource-based businesses.
MARBIDCO Programs & Services
In delivering its financing programs, MARBIDCO works cooperatively with commercial banks, Farm Credit Associations, and the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), as well as other federal, State and local government agencies and universities.
Developed with stakeholder input, MARBIDCO’s “core” loan and business development programs are designed to uniquely help fill an important rural development void. In addition to the core development programs, MARBIDCO also offers speciality loan programs funded by other agencies and is also authorized to assist with rural land preservation.
MARBIDCO offers more than a dozen targeted low-interest loan and grant incentive programs. A special focus of the corporation is assisting innovative business enterprises and start-up operations which tend to have a level of risk exposure that commercial lenders find unacceptable without third-party participation or mitigation. This is where the MARBIDCO programs can be of tangible benefit to rural entrepreneurs and commercial lenders alike.
MARBIDCO's reach
MARBIDCO serves food and fiber producers and processors throughout Maryland, including:
Western Maryland
- Allegany County
- Carroll County
- Garrett County
- Washington County
- Frederick County
Eastern Shore Maryland 
- Caroline County
- Cecil county
- Dorchester County
- Kent County
- Queen Anne's County
- Somerset County
- Talbot County
- Wicomico County
- Worchester County
Southern Maryland
- Anne Arundel County
- Calvert County
- Prince George's County
- St. Mary's County
- Charles County
Central Maryland
- Balitmore City
- Baltimore County
- Harford County
- Howard County
- Montgomery County
Photo: Remsberg Inc.