Sustainable Agricultural Finance: A Bibliometric and Systematic Literature Review

Sustainable Agricultural Finance refers to financial mechanisms that support environmentally sustainable, socially inclusive, economically viable, and climate-resilient agricultural development. It encompasses agricultural lending, credit, green finance, value-chain finance, blended finance, digital financial services, insurance, and other financing instruments that facilitate sustainable agricultural production and rural development. The bibliometric dataset assembled for this review is anchored in agricultural lending- and credit-related search terminology (Section 3.1) and therefore most comprehensively captures Sustainable Agricultural Finance research situated at the intersection of credit or lending and sustainability; literature centred on stand-alone agricultural insurance, blended-finance vehicles, or green bonds that does not also use lending- or credit-related terms is less fully represented, a boundary discussed further as a limitation. This study aims to examine the evolution, intellectual structure, thematic development, and future research directions of Sustainable Agricultural Finance through a Bibliometric Systematic Literature Review (BSLR) of 366 Scopus-indexed journal articles published from January 2000 to May 2026. Guided by the PRISMA 2020 framework, it integrates bibliometric analysis using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer with a systematic review. The findings reveal a marked increase in scholarly attention since 2016, with research evolving from conventional agricultural credit and rural finance towards broader themes including sustainability, climate change adaptation, digital finance, green finance, climate-smart agriculture, and sustainable development. The review identifies policy support, digital financial services, value-chain financing, green finance, and social capital as key drivers of Sustainable Agricultural Finance, while highlighting persistent barriers such as information asymmetry, climate risk, inadequate collateral, limited financial literacy, gender disparities, and institutional constraints. Based on these findings, the study proposes a conceptual framework grounded in this credit- and lending-centred evidence base and identifies key research gaps to inform future scholarship, policy formulation, and practice in Sustainable Agricultural Finance.