Financial capacity and digital technology adoption intensity among offshore fishers in Sri Lanka

Digital technologies are increasingly promoted for improving transparency and sustainability in seafood value chains, but these benefits depend on fishers adopting them. It remains unclear why some fishers use many digital tools while others use few, and how financial capacity relates to this variation. This study examines whether credit access, household liquidity capacity, and fixed asset value are associated with the intensity of digital technology use among offshore fishers in Sri Lanka. We measured adoption intensity as the number of tools each fisher used from a portfolio of 19 digital technologies. We analysed data from 300 fishers, one per vessel, across 10 harbours using a design-weighted quasi-Poisson model, with a Bayesian negative binomial robustness check. In the primary weighted model, credit access, household liquidity capacity, and fixed asset value were positively associated with adoption intensity, whereas net annual fishing income showed no clear association. Education level, ICT training, and skipper certification showed no clear independent associations. However, ICT training was more strongly associated with adoption intensity among fishers with higher liquidity capacity and better credit access, although this interaction finding is directional. Risk perception and network size showed negative associations. The credit-access association was clearly stronger for the information, finance, and reporting group and the detection, sensing, and forecast group than for the navigation, monitoring, and certification group. This indicates that credit access is more clearly associated with some forms of digitalisation than others. Finance-based support alone may therefore not address the full digital technology portfolio.