Mr Porter was part of a panel which led a discussion on "Rural urban balance: realities and expectations", at the three-day national deer industry conference in Wanaka last week.
"I think that the future's bleak for rural land-users in terms of local government," he told the audience of deer farmers and other industry stakeholders at the Lake Wanaka Centre on Wednesday.
"I think the problem is one that's been foisted on us somewhat by central government having a distrust of local government and making process more and more complex.
"Many of the people who work for local government are well-intentioned but they simply don't get issues to do with rural.
"The farming sector don't have a great say."
Drawing on his own experience as a farmer dealing with the Resource Management Act, Mr Porter said the rural environment was typically viewed as "a pretty landscape that they [council staff] want you to maintain".
"The people who write these planning and landscape reports have no appreciation whatsoever that in fact the rural environment is a platform for agricultural production."
One solution was seeking changes to councils, so staff would take on the views of the rural sector to a greater extent.
Arguing for a rural ward was an option, or simply pushing for more rural representatives in local government.
"In the longer term, we all have to understand that the ... leaders of tomorrow ... are going to probably, almost certainly, come from urban environments."
He suggested farmers contact secondary schools in urban centres and offer "farm holidays" to the most successful pupils, to ensure they had a "greater appreciation" of the rural sector when they entered influential planning and decision-making roles in the future.
Minaret Station owner Jonathon Wallis was also part of the panel and said the biggest myth about the rural-urban gap was how big it actually was.
"The reality is it's as much about the rural sector understanding the urban sector as it is the other way around and when you get people together you understand we're not that far apart at all," Mr Wallis said.
"We need to effectively communicate that innovation is alive and well in the farming sector and the deer industry is no exception to that. It's been grown by innovators into a mainstream commercial enterprise with internationally sought-after products."
Mayor Vanessa van Uden also touched on the need for farmers to "engage" more with urban communities and acknowledged the late John Aspinall, of Mt Aspiring Station, as a great advocate for the rural sector.
"Sell your story. You do have great stories to tell but too often you are not the best marketers of your own success and your contribution to the world," she said.
"The town people and the country people are not miles apart ... it's just a matter of sitting people down together and having the discussion ... a lot of the discussions are better had without a whole lot of planners and landscape planners there.
"[The council is] interested, and we are wanting to make sure people can have a viable, economic life in this community."
Ms van Uden said farmers did have a responsibility as "guardians" of local landscapes, and "absolutely key" to the district's tourism industry was ensuring the landscapes were protected and enhanced.
