He says being spokesman for the group had been a steep learning curve.
He said it had only been going as a group for three months and had achieved national prominence with the issues it had raised.
Butterick said he had no political ambitions before the conversion of quality sheep and beef country to forestry became so common he was compelled to take a stand.
"The reality is what we are seeing happening is wrong. It's well intentioned but with very poor outcomes."
Butterick said it was not his intention to lecture, his role was to listen and to air concerns as to what was happening in farming.
"I was born and bred in provincial New Zealand so I like to think I have the background and understanding."
Butterick admits he sold a farm at Te Wharau to forestry three years ago, but he said it was a large farm on extremely steep country and he had tried for two years to have the land turned into a national park.
"It was a pretty hard farm and it's nothing to do with what's happening now," he said.
"It was on the market for six years when I sold it three years ago. The message to me from the farming community was that nobody wanted to buy the farm."
He said he was open about the sale of the farm because he knows it will come up if he becomes a politician.
Butterick says he is a farming-business person who grew up in mid-Canterbury.
He moved to Wairarapa in 1990 and met his wife Rachel and worked as a shepherd on properties all the way up the East Coast to Hicks Bay. They returned to Wairarapa where they raised their children who all went through schools in the province.
They have a farm out of Masterton as well as a farming business with others.
Butterick said forestry had a role in New Zealand but "what brought it to the forefront was the blanket planting of extremely productive farmland".
Those associated with 50 Shades of Green delved into the land conversion and felt there were unintended consequences of a well-intentioned policy and they were not being monitored, he said.
"It was at the end of the day a desire to get the right outcomes for provincial New Zealand."
And that means for everyone, not just farmers.
"We are not anti-trees, they do have a place."
But he said he was concerned at the social impacts of afforestation.
"By that I mean the effects on provincial New Zealand socially, economically and environmentally."
A change of rules allowing foreigners to buy land for forests rather than other forms of farming was driving land conversion to forestry, along with rules around emissions trading and policy in the Zero Carbon Bill.
Butterick said when he saw something was wrong he had to say it was wrong.
"You have got to stand up, I believe, and say that it is wrong.
"If I am going to do it, I am going to try to do it properly, because I have a strong belief in trying to do the right thing for the provinces."
He believed provincial New Zealand was worth fighting for.
He said people needed to remember the role farming played in New Zealand.
