A systematic review of agricultural finance channels in developing countries: towards an integrated agricultural investment ecosystem

Agricultural finance remains a critical development challenge in developing countries, where smallholder farmers face persistent exclusion from formal financial services. This systematic review synthesizes two decades of evidence (2000–2025) on agricultural investment channels following PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The review examines how traditional mechanisms; commercial banks, government programmes, and cooperatives—and digital financial innovations perform in serving smallholder populations in developing countries. Findings reveal that traditional mechanisms are constrained by structural inefficiencies, collateral requirements, and limited rural reach, while digital innovations remain siloed and inadequately embedded within agricultural value chains. Persistent barriers including information asymmetries, geographic exclusion, and fragmented regulation perpetuate financial exclusion. Drawing on these findings , this study proposes the Integrated Agricultural Investment Ecosystem (IAIE) framework—a unified, multi-stakeholder model that bridges traditional and digital financing through coordinated service delivery, mobile banking integration, alternative credit scoring, and shared-risk mechanisms. The IAIE is a theoretically grounded and evidence-informed integrative model for sustainable agricultural finance, offered as a design proposition for empirical testing. The study concludes with policy recommendations emphasizing adaptive regulation, infrastructure investment, and strategic public–private partnerships to enable ecosystem-based finance at scale.