Abstract
SOS Rosarno was launched in Winter 2011 as a campaign by a group of small farmers, activists and migrants based in the Gioia Tauro Plain. It evolved in 2012 into a formal association, which supported in 2015 the creation of a social cooperative, called Mani e terra. The idea of the campaign, conceived after the tumult of African orange-pickers exploded in January 2010, was to sell organic citrus fruits through short supply chains, essentially based on Solidarity Purchase Groups, in order to allow producers to pay migrant workers according to the law, to receive a fair remuneration, to guarantee healthy and affordable food to consumers, to protect the integrity of the environment. This paper aims to reconstruct genealogy and evolution of SOS Rosarno, with a special focus on ideology, organization and practices. It will draw mainly on political documents produced by the association and in-depth interviews with its members. On one side, the paper shows how the new social alliances implemented by SOS Rosarno might challenge the dominant food supply chain, which impoverishes small producers and lets migrant farmworkers be exploited. On the other side, it clarifies how principles of food sovereignty, self-management and democratic economic planning have been developed by SOS Rosarno within a new peasant civilization, which offers a viable alternative to the current economic crisis. The full text of this paper is available in Italian.