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Article History

Received: 7 February 2024

Accepted: 22 October 2025

First Online: 26 November 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: The ethics of the study were based on all the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. These principles were reviewed by the research group that participated in the design of the study and were applied before administering the questionnaire. The work was approved by the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT), now known as the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (SECIHTI), on 1 December 2021 with project number 2150016. To this end, the institution requires that funded projects adhere to the ethical principles of its regulatory framework, which includes the SECIHTI Code of Ethics, the General Law on Humanities, Sciences, Technologies and Innovation, and its Codes of Conduct and Regulations. Since the work only addresses issues related to production and collection, participants are not exposed to any risk.

: Given that the research was non-interventional and conducted through voluntary surveys, all participants received detailed information before responding to the questionnaire. The request for informed consent was made individually and face-to-face, beginning on 22 March and concluding on 11 April 2022. This information consisted of a guarantee of anonymity, the reasons for conducting the research, and how their data would be used. They were assured that their participation posed no risk. This information was provided in writing and explained in detail to respondents before they responded to each survey. Any questions they had were clarified verbally and through the following written statement in each questionnaire: This instrument is part of the research project: “Innovation of new tomato-based products that are beneficial to human health and boost the economy of the population affected by the coronavirus pandemic in agriculture,” by Matilde Reséndiz-Castro, CONACYT postdoctoral fellow at the National School of Biological Sciences of the National Polytechnic Institute. The objective is to diagnose the general demographic, environmental, infrastructural, technological (processes), economic, social, cultural, and production process conditions. Please note that we will treat the confidentiality of the information entrusted to us with the utmost importance, and that the data collected will be used responsibly and will not be associated with you, your family, company, or institution. We also reiterate that the information provided will not be used for control purposes by any authority, nor is it intended to judge your behavior. Therefore, we invite you to respond freely. To protect your privacy, all data will be anonymised and personal information will be removed from the records once the questionnaires are completed.