Scythe & Spade Company

Scythe & Spade Company

Founded in 1998 and based in Grand View, Idaho, Scythe & Spade was built to rewire how institutional capital accesses U.S. farmland. The firm does not operate as a commingled fund; it structures individual equity investments that pair financial sponsors directly with agricultural operators. This architecture lets it move faster than a traditional fund on due diligence, acquisition, and eventual disposition, while its FarmBase\u2122 proprietary data system layers GIS analytics over regional boots-on-the-ground intelligence. The firm covers the full cycle: farmland acquisition, on-going asset management, and disposition. Its due-diligence arm runs detailed economic and financial analyses, and its real estate group handles transactions from inquiry through closing via private negotiations or multi-stage processes. The asset management practice includes property management, business planning, and operational oversight. Scythe & Spade has advised on transactions in every major U.S. growing region, and its client work includes a Fortune 500 asset liquidation that required unwinding complex agricultural holdings. Scythe & Spade operates from a single office in Grand View, Idaho, and has not publicly disclosed team size or total deal volume as a single figure. The firm states it has managed \"billions in transactions\" over more than 20 years. The firm\u2019s structural differentiator is the absence of a pooled fund vehicle. By engineering one-off equity placements that match institutional investors with operators, Scythe & Spade sidesteps the pressure to deploy on a clock and can underwrite each deal independently. That model also aligns its fee structure with transaction outcomes and asset performance rather than committed but uncalled capital, a governance choice that distinguishes it from most agricultural private equity managers.