European Commission has played a pioneering role in the development of public policy to promote CSR ever since its 2001 Green Paper and the establishment of the European Multistakeholder Forum on CSR. In 2006 the Commission published a new policy whose centrepiece was strong support for a business-lead initiative called the European Alliance for CSR. The policy also identified 8 priority areas for EU action: awareness-raising and best practice exchange; support to multistakeholder initiatives; cooperation with Member States; consumer information and transparency; research; education; small and medium-sized enterprises; and the international dimension of CSR. In a widely changed but still evolving context, agri-food enterprises have been demonstrating socially responsible attitudes towards the common good and social welfare leading to a new business ethical dimension. In the light of a reforming prospective, agri-food enterprises are rethinking their traditional productive, economic and organizational schemes: an original way of looking at the multifunctional and sustainable farm. These enterprises are also reshaping  their relationships with the other agri-food stakeholders by adopting socially responsible behaviour.La Comisión Europea ha jugado un papel pionero en la promoción de la responsabilidad social coroporativa (RSC) desde el Libro Verde de 2001 y el establecimiento del Foro Europeo de multistakeholders sobre RSC. En el 2006 la Comisión publicó una nueva política cuya pieza central es un fuerte apoyo a una iniciativa liderada por empresas, llamada la Alianza Europea por la RSC. La política identifica ocho áreas de acción prioritarias. Partiendo de lo anterior, el presente artículo analiza el marco europeo e italiano de regulación de la responsabilidad social corporativa y su incidencia en el sistema agroalimentario.