Agriculture journalism great Marcia Zarley Taylor has died

Award-winning agricultural journalist Marcia Zarley Taylor has died, DTN/The Progressive Farmer Editor-in-Chief Greg Horstmeier has announced.

She died Feb. 19 after a brief illness.

Taylor was hired by DTN Editor Emeritus Urban Lehner in 2007. She would have been at DTN/The Progressive Farmer for 10 years this week, according to the announcement. 

Her stories and drive to help professional farmers help themselves led to the formation of the Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP) and AAPEX, as well as the Top Producer seminars. She was also a leader in DTN's Ag Summit.

"Our mission and objectives couldn't have been better matched," TEPAP founder Danny Klinefelter said. "We were both targeting the very business oriented; continuous improvement agricultural producers that we knew were going to be the future of U.S. agriculture."

Taylor was recognized by colleagues and industry professionals for her ability to tap into the business-to-business aspects of agricultural journalism, including interviewing farmers, bankers and politicians to discuss strategies, wins and losses. In addition to writing about farmers in the U.S., she went to Brazil and told the stories of those working in commodity grain production.

"Marcia was one of the preeminent ag journalists of her generation," Lehner said. "Her contributions to DTN/The Progressive Farmer — as a writer, an editor and the editorial leader of the Ag Summit — were enormous. And she was a wonderful friend and a wonderful person. To say she will be missed is a massive understatement."