Research transitions in sustainable agricultural finance during the voluntary sustainability period

Sustainable agricultural finance (SAF) supports the achievement of SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 1 (No Poverty) by promoting inclusive, resilient, and sustainable farming systems. Although SAF has gained growing attention, the literature remains fragmented and focused only on specific themes such as climate finance, rural credit, green investment, financial inclusion, and risk management in agriculture. There is a lack of comprehensive studies examining its overall intellectual structure, publication trends, key contributors, thematic evolution, bibliometric performance, and global collaboration patterns as a unified research field. Therefore, we performed a bibliometric analysis of literature in the field in Scopus database. Articles were searched using a TITLE-ABS-KEY search. The time period selected was Jan 2015 to february 2026. We included 155 documents in the analysis using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The selection was in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines and pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria for subject area, language, and document type. The most popular affiliation was Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. Core journals such as Sustainability (Switzerland) had significant reach. Author productivity was highly dispersed, indicating that SAF remains an emerging research field. The pattern of coupling pointed to China as the leading knowledge centre, and there is a strong global intellectual connectivity that dictates the advancement of SAF research. The thematic map indicates blockchain, ESG, and credit risk as possible directions for future studies, but these aspects are still developing. In brief, the findings indicate a growing scholarly focus on financing for climate resilience, resource efficiency, environmental sustainability and sustainable agricultural transformation.