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.”
