How do climate concerns and value orientation among bankers influence agricultural financing?

Agricultural financing is crucial for economic development and sustainability. However, little is known about how bankers are concerned about climate change as decision makers for agricultural financing as well as their concerns are related to the possible future performances. This study investigates a research question “how do bankers’ climate concerns and value orientation influence agricultural financing?†and the hypotheses “bankers’ climate concerns discourage agricultural financing, whereas their value orientations for future generations encourage it.†We conduct questionnaire surveys and collect data on concerns toward climate factors, prosocial attitude for future generations and sociodemographic information from 596 bankers at three areas in Bangladesh. The results reveal three main findings. First, bankers who have high climate concerns tend to be less optimistic about agricultural financing. Second, bankers who live in high climate-change areas tend to have more severe climate concerns and darker prospectives in agricultural financing than those in low climate-change areas. Third, bankers who have a high value orientation for future generations are likely to be positive over future agricultural financing. Overall, our findings suggest that agricultural financing shall be discouraged as climate change becomes severe, hitting low-land areas, such as Bangladesh, through the lens of bankers’ perceptions, unless the bankers possess high concerns for future generations. To counter such negative possibilities in agricultural financing, a new agricultural financing scheme, such as “agricultural green banking,†shall be necessary to implement.