It comes as farmers plan to rally through Oamaru in protest of "unworkable" regulations today.
Mr Parker was joined by Waitaki candidate Ethan Reille at the Oamaru Opera House yesterday for a public meeting.
Mr Parker took audience questions on a wide variety of topics, ranging from house prices to the health system.
When asked about farming regulations, Mr Parker said the only changes that had already come into effect were regulations on intensive winter grazing.
"The prediction was those changes would require up to 10,000 resource consents throughout the country.
"In fact, there have been less than 250 throughout the whole of New Zealand."
Other restrictions, such as new fresh water regulations, were still being rolled out.
"We do hold farmers to account for their pollution, but if we don’t, our rivers would have continued to degrade."
Much of the anti-government sentiment in some rural groups came from misinformation and extremist viewpoints on social media, he said.
One of the disadvantages of social media was that many population grounds had a "more extreme subset of opinion constantly thrust at them".
He used an example that had affected him personally, when Jacqui Dean interjected in Parliament with the statement "David Parker hates farmers".
He repeated "Jacqui Dean says I hate farmers" to ensure it was recorded.
A clip of the statement was taken, but edited so it showed him saying "I hate farmers".
The public opinion of him and the Labour government was swayed for thousands of farmers who saw that edited clip, he said.
