Farmers are being urged to support the national animal identification and traceability (NAIT) scheme or risk having markets demand a system.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper told suppliers at Finegand this week that NAIT was not perfect, but producers and exporters needed to protect themselves.
All it would take would be a biosecurity outbreak in Europe and importers could impose as a condition of supply, some form of traceability.
"It is effectively a passport. We need to do it. You need to get over the political drama of who will pay for it, who will hold the data and what it will be used for," he said.
Federated Farmers has led a campaign of opposition to NAIT, saying it was too costly, the technology had shortcomings and the data could have other uses such as monitoring livestock for climate change policy.
It was proposed to introduce the technology for cattle and deer from 2011.
Mr Cooper said there were major issues at stake, and while the technology had shortcomings, it was the best available.
He said farmers should be concerned there was no national identification and traceability programme for the next two years, a gap he said could leave the industry exposed should markets demand such a scheme.
The difficulty was getting information on an animal from start of life and then being able to recall that information in a few seconds, but that technology was not yet available.