Addressing the rural lobby organisation's national conference in Auckland this week, Mr Leferink said policymakers wanted "lots and lots" of export earnings from farmers.
That meant more dairy cows and greater production from them, but from much less land as cities sprawled outwards.
On the other hand, policymakers had enacted policies that gave "over-eager regional council staff a blank cheque guaranteeing their wages as crusaders for the environment".
Outlining the national policy statement for freshwater management, Mr Leferink said some councils had "skipped right past" working with the community.
The places where tensions were felt the most included Otago, Southland, Canterbury, Horizons and Bay of Plenty.
He singled out the Otago Regional Council with its plans to set limits on the amount of phosphorous, nitrogen, sediment and bacteria in the water leaving farms.
They created strict standards as to where stock could access water and set Otago-wide nitrogen limits.
Those were measured by an annual limit of 30kg of nitrogen per hectare and an even stricter annual limit of 10kg if a farm fell into a sensitive groundwater zone. Ten kilograms of nitrogen per ha "puts farmers out of business", Mr Leferink said.
Sustainability was balancing the needs of the environment with economic, social and cultural needs.
He understood all four needed to be in balance to achieve sustainability but he questioned whether the Government, some regional councils and sections of the media understood that.
The way environmental problems in New Zealand were handled was not helpful, he said.
"It sets up community group against community group until a commissioner makes a decision which, in general, is challenged until the money runs out in the Environment Court."
Mr Leferink proposed farmers get together with industry partners to develop a plan for the future benefiting current and future New Zealanders.
It would help develop the policies that balanced those four tests of sustainability.
"We must become masters of our own destinies again, but do not think we won't have to change," he said.
In her address to the conference, meat and fibre chairwoman Jeanette Maxwell said the environment was a newer area of attention for sheep and beef farmers and it was a very important issue.
There was no "one-size-fits-all" solution to the outcomes required around the environment and so the best fit for each region needed to be looked at, she said.
North Otago Federated Farmers president Richard Strowger, from Waianakarua, has been elected to the meat and fibre national executive.
