Italy has announced that country of origin labelling will soon be required on pasta packages sold in that country.

That's bad news for Canadian wheat farmers.

Cereals Canada President Cam Dahl says the move would make it more expensive for Italian millers to buy Canadian wheat.

He adds they're looking into what can be done to stop the process from happening.

"That's something that we're working very closely with our government on, to see if there are some short-term legal action that we can take," he explained. "Of course in the longer term, there are WTO remedies on this, but everyone knows how long it took to get a resolution to the U.S. meat country of origin labelling, so hopefully we can find a solution that doesn't take 8 to 10 years."

Dahl noted that Italy went ahead and made the decision to implement country of origin labelling without approval from the European Commission.

He said the Italian Farmers Union has launched a campaign against Canadian wheat, in an effort to degrade public opinion on the quality of product made from Canadian wheat.

Last year Italy took about 30 per cent of Canadian durum exports, or about 1.1 million metric tonnes.