Every summer, when I drove through a small Polish village, I passed a couple dozen grandmothers and grandfathers lined up at their gates selling garden produce. A stool, a small table, and on it a few courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers or cherries, with a sack of potatoes on the ground beside them. Whatever the garden behind the gate happened to yield at that moment.

You can find such micro‑sellers elsewhere too, but nowhere with the density of that little village whose name I've never managed to remember. It was like the Ülemiste Center of backyard farmers.

For a while, the road literally took me past it, but the old international village road near Poland's eastern border has gradually been replaced by a modern four‑lane highway.

When I accidentally passed through the village again at the end of June, I saw only one elderly man selling produce at his gate. Who knows whether the decline of these roadside markets is due to customers being lured away by the highway, the season being too early for harvest, or simply the disappearance of the generation that formed that vegetable gallery.

If one wanted to poke fun, one could say that Polish authorities must have been taken over by Estonian officials — the same ones who recently faced heavy criticism because the Transport Administration requires approval for roadside advertisements, and because under a regulation by the Minister of Agriculture, growers must notify the state if they cultivate more than half a hectare of produce for sale.

I also have a thorn saved up for poking at these plans, but more on that later. First, I want to talk about something else I've noticed along Polish roads — and in some other countries too. Crosses. Figures of Christ. Candles commemorating people killed in traffic accidents. Some memorials are modest, just a small light glowing by the ditch; others are almost the size of a small chapel.

In Estonia, such mini‑memorials are not allowed for the same reason the Transport Administration doesn't want unapproved roadside ads: they draw too much attention from drivers and can cause dangerous situations.

How could a small A4‑sized sign with the word "POTATOES" scribbled in black marker endanger traffic on a straight road? It doesn't — but if placed just behind a curve, sudden braking by eager buyers can cause trouble. And a flashing light advertisement right by the roadside — I've seen such things at Estonian farm gates — can attract far more attention than is healthy for drivers.

If everyone put up discreet signs, there would be no need for approvals. But the whole point of advertising is to stand out, especially now, in the season of pop‑up cafés, summer events and fairs. So, thinking it through, perhaps the rule that has been in place for 11 years does make sense.

The second wave of largely unjustified criticism targeted a regulation adopted last year — but only this year made infamous — requiring growers to notify the Agriculture and Food Board if they cultivate more than half a hectare of produce for sale.

First, a version spread claiming that people must notify the state even when growing for personal use, although in reality notification is not required even when selling occasional surplus — only when it is systematic business activity. And somehow the impression has formed that 0.5 hectares is a tiny garden patch. Let's put things in context: such a field can yield more than ten tonnes of potatoes. Yes, it's not industrial farming, but it's certainly not the Bullerby children's cherry stand either.

One can certainly debate where exactly the threshold should be — the point at which the state requires notification, registration and taxes. Most people agree that a backyard gardener selling a few extra pumpkins or a kid selling lemonade should not be tangled in bureaucracy. And a small table at the end of the driveway bothers no one. But there must always be a limit somewhere, and those who fall just above it will never be happy.

The common thread in these two examples is how incredibly flammable a material public anger is. It seems so much of it has accumulated somewhere that many people no longer even consider the possibility that rules usually do have a logical reason — even if you don't see it immediately without looking deeper.

Why do we assume, for example, that the state should be able to stop the sale of fake honey or prevent Polish strawberries from being passed off as Estonian ones, if it isn't even allowed to ask whether someone is growing anything? There is plenty of global data on how roadside ads affect drivers, but one study found that even a traffic‑safety campaign showing the number of road deaths increased the likelihood of an accident by 4.5 percent over the next ten kilometres — so imagine the effect of regular advertising.

Unfortunately, it is equally unbelievable how poorly regulators have explained the reasons behind these rules — at least before the public outcry begins. Afterwards, they try to put out the fire, but by then the house is already full of smoke or even missing its roof.

This easily creates the impression that somewhere sits an army of officials inventing rules just to deepen the "deep state." In truth, it would be wonderful if that were the case — it would be much easier to root out such freeloaders than to fight real problems like climate change. Sadly, the 10,000 people who died in Europe during the late‑June heatwave did not perish because of bureaucratic foolishness, but because of catastrophic weather conditions.

It is very easy to behave like Donald Trump, who didn't even know what a red card in football meant, but when a top striker on the U.S. team had to miss the next match under a long‑standing FIFA rule after receiving one at the World Cup, he called it unfair and demanded the suspension be overturned.

It is harder — but more reasonable — to look beyond the first emotional reaction and realise that extending the ban to the next match is the only workable option, because otherwise every football game would end in chaos and injuries. Many things may not appeal to me, but that does not mean they have no reason when viewed from another angle.

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