Two of the things growers and shippers want to see in new federal food safety rules — flexibility and simplicity — are mutually exclusive according to officials from the Food and Drug Administration.

Coral Beach of The Packer writes the more flexible the rules, the more complicated they have to be. That was the message from FDA’s top food safety staff during a Nov. 21 session in Florida where they fielded questions on proposed rules required by the Food Safety and Modernization Act.

Mike Taylor (right, not exactly as shown), FDA deputy director of foods, and Samir Assar, director of produce safety at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, also said time has not been on the agency’s side in terms of developing the rules.

“It’s an incredibly rapid, very tight time frame were on,” Taylor said, adding that a court order requires the agency to publish the final rule for produce in October next year.

Taylor and other federal officials spent about 90 minutes reviewing the proposed rules and revisions before taking questions during the session, which was sponsored by the Florida Agriculture Department. It was the fifth such state session Taylor and the others have attended since Nov. 6.

(Terrible pretend playing in the video below; and this guy interviewed Nixon.)