As forestry investors snap up land for carbon farming, farmers are feeling anxious and unheard.

Massive conversion of farmland to forestry is "ripping the guts out" of rural communities and farmers are fed up, the organisers of a planned protest at Parliament say.

Andy Scott, chairman of farming lobby group 50 Shades of Green, said farmers were frustrated with not being heard by the Government and hoped to reach a wider audience by taking their concerns to Wellington on Thursday.

"We've lobbied Parliament for a while but policies that hurt rural communities continue to be pushed through," he said.

"The blanket planting of good farmland has reached crisis proportions and the policies around incentives to plant trees and get subsidies are flawed."

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Farmers also wanted a fair go on water quality issues, land use changes and mental health, which Scott said was being affected by the persistent focus on farming as a "problem".

"Farmers are feeling isolated and under attack and they're fed up with not being listened to."

PAULA HULBURT/STUFF Blanket planting of good farmland is "ripping the guts out" of rural communities, farmers say.

Scott said more than 300 people had so far put their names forward for the march, which he described as a "funeral for provincial New Zealand", but he expected the turnout to be much higher.

"We think only about one in 10 farmers would register so it could be up to 3000 on the day."

Tararua sheep and beef farmer Scott Somerville planned to be there, along with most of the community of Pongaroa, where he farmed.

"You can count on one hand how many times farmers have marched on Parliament, so it's not being done lightly," he said.

SUPPLIED Andy Scott, chairman of farming lobby group 50 Shades of Green, says farmers are fed up with not being listened to.

"We've spent the last 12 months trying to be heard by the Government and we're not getting through."

He hoped the planned protest would spur the Government into action and bring a change to the rules around overseas investment in New Zealand land.

"We're hoping the Government will put the on the rule that allows overseas investors to bypass that process and just buy up farmland for forestry.

"The majority of those people are already well-off so they make their money from the cashflow out of carbon units, they're not necessarily worrying about when they're going to cut those trees down."

The "streamline test" allows overseas investors to quickly buy land if it will be exclusively, or nearly exclusively, used for forestry.

When the test is used, the Overseas Investment Office aims to approve applications within 32 days.

Somerville said there was a lot of emotion involved for rural people and that was likely to be see on Thursday.

"Blanket planting of trees on profitable farmland is ripping the guts out of farming communities.

"There's a lot of anger and frustration at what's going but also frustration that a lot of New Zealanders don't seem to see how it affects them," he said.

SUPPLIED Thousands of hectares of hill country sheep and beef farmland has been converted to forestry in the last 12 months.

"It's having and will continue to have a massive negative impact for all Kiwis, it's not just a farmers' issue that we're marching about.

"People don't understand how this is going to impact them but everyone is going to be much worse off because of what's happening now.

"It will flow through to everyone's back pocket, the price of everything will be sky-high."