Digitalisation is commonplace across the agriculture and fisheries sectors but with a corresponding skills gap such that while some businesses have quickly adapted, many are struggling with effective, efficient digital adoption. There is need for digital literacy training across the fisheries industries and a specific urgency for a digital literacy program to happen in Queensland due to the Queensland Fisheries Management reform processes currently underway and the planned move from paper reporting to online reporting in mid 2020. However, consultation with industry and government highlights that it is premature to engage a digital literacy program purely associated with Queensland fisheries reform while there continues to be significant antagonism and scepticism towards the proposed reforms by industry.

Fishers are highly unlikely to engage in a digital literacy program in such an antagonistic environment and that it will likely result in an extremely low adoption rate. This investment will assess the specific digital literacy skills needed and the level of openness of fishers to adopt the proposed QDAF digital reporting platform. The findings will inform the design and development strategies to maximise general business digital literacy skills to ensure that commercial fishers have the underlying technical skills and knowledge to adopt technologies (including intended users of the new QDAF digital reporting platform) that will potentially improve business operations and the uptake of service functions.