Gateway Team Members
Daniela Battaglia (Coordinator)
Daniela Battaglia is currently Livestock Production Officer in the Animal Production and Health Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Within the organization she is responsible for the ctivities in support of Animal Welfare. Prior to joining the FAO in 2001, Daniela worked for nine years for the European Commission (Directorates-General evelopment, Directorates-General External Relations and the Europe-Aid Co-operation Office). During that period, she was involved in a wide range of activities and co-operation programmes and projects in the fields of animal production and health; livestock and rural development, mainly in Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Daniela has also worked for some years in the field of livestock and rural development in several countries: Peru, Bolivia, Suriname, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Israel and Tunisia.
Klaas Dietze
Klaas Dietze joined the Animal Production Service at FAO in October 2008. He graduated as a veterinarian from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany. In his Ph.D. thesis in chemical analytics he dealt with meat quality aspects of different sheep breeds as well as poultry meat.
In his current position, besides collaborating with Daniela Battaglia in her work on animal welfare, he is addressing all aspects of pig production and dealing with the livestock sector in the interdisciplinary work on climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Before joining FAO he was working as a researcher at the University of Kassel, Germany, Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Nutrition and Animal Health. During this time his work was focusing on preventive animal health issues including animal welfare and the status of animal health in organic farming systems in Europe with a special emphasis on pig production. Additionally he has been gathering practical experience working in veterinary farm animal practice in Germany as well as during externships at veterinary faculties in the United States (Ohio State University – camelid medicine) and Costa Rica (Universidad Nacional – parasitology, farm animal medicine and wildlife management).
Maria Ferrara
Since March 2005, Maria Ferrara has been working as Seconded National Expert at the European Commission, Health and Consumers Directorate General, in Unit D5 “Animal Welfare” in charge of developing Community policies and legislation on animal welfare.
Maria is responsible for following the scientific developments supporting European policies in animal welfare as well as for international activities to raise awareness and create a greater consensus on animal welfare in Trading countries with the European Union (such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina). She coordinates the working relationship on animal welfare issues between the Commission and international organisations such as OIE and FAO.
Since 2002 she worked in Italy in the “Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise “G. Caporale”, OIE Collaborating Centre for Veterinary Training, Epidemiology, Food Safety and Animal Welfare. Born in 1977, Maria graduated in 2001 as a veterinary surgeon at the University of Teramo with a thesis on the effects of dietary supplementation with antioxidants and unsaturated fatty acids on the oxidative stress in sportive horses during eventing competitions. She has a post-graduate degree in “Food of Animal Origin Inspection”.
Annamaria Pisapia
Annamaria Pisapia is Food Business Manager-Italy at Compassion in World Farming. She engages with Italian food companies in order to secure winners for Compassion’s Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards and more generally to inspire positive change in the companies’ farm animal welfare standards. She also develops joint communication initiatives on farm animal welfare with the awarded companies. Among the Italian companies she works with are leading retailer Coop Italia, Autogrill, IKEA Food Italy and cage-free egg producer Coccodì. She also works in Italy with the public sector to celebrate and encourage best practice on farm animal welfare as part of sustainable procurement. In the frame of the Good Egg Awards 2010, in a more Southern European scenario, she has also worked in Spain, securing two Spanish winners. Annamaria has started working for Compassion in 2008 as European Food Business Representative. In the period August 2008-June 2009 she had also served as Trade Policy Assistant for RSPCA, WSPA, Compassion In World Farming and Eurogroup for Animals. In the frame of this position she had collaborated with the European Commission in organizing the international Conference on Global Trade and Farm Animal Welfare, which took place in Brussels from 20 to 21 January 2009.
Her commitment to animal welfare goes back to the years where she served as Regional Coordinator of Emilia Romagna for the Italian organization LAV, developing regionally and locally national and international animal welfare campaigns, coordinating local branches and lobbying the Regional Parliament (Assemblea Legislativa Regionale), where she founded in 2006 the Counselors’ Intergroup for Animal Rights.
Annamaria Pisapia graduated in History at the Bologna University and worked three years at the Max-Planck-Institut für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte of Frankfurt am Main in Germany, in the frame of a scholarship in European Legal History.
Francesco Proscia
Francesco qualified as a veterinarian at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Perugia in Italy in October 2000.
After four years working in general practice and in abattoir investigations in 2004 he joined FAO within the Animal Production Service (AGAP) assisting the veterinary public health group for a project supporting countries with economies in transition and developing countries in capacity building for surveillance and prevention of BSE/TSE and other zoonotic diseases. One year later he worked in UK on meat and hygiene inspection and in particular on BSE/TSE processing procedures, cattle and sheep ante/post-mortem inspections and zoonotic diseases detection. Obtained his MSc Degree in food safety and quality from the Agricultural Faculty of the University of Parma he worked for a dairy company until December 2008. In January 2009 he joined the Animal Health and Production Division (AGA) of FAO providing consultancy on the Animal-Human Interface Programme through the management of the VPH Global Network and assisting with planning, organizing, servicing and promoting the activities of the FAO gateway to farm animal welfare. From 2010 he has been appointed as veterinary policy officer from the federation of veterinarians of Europe based in Brussels. He is now involved mainly in food safety and hygiene, animal welfare, veterinary profession education and regulatory bodies, information and communication technology.
Giada Sciortino
Animalist since ever, Giada is currently involved in dog sheltering and adoption campaigns. Giada worked for several years in a dog shelter as coordinator and veterinary assistant, in charge of puppy and skill dog daily treatments. She took part in a project raising awareness on responsibilities towards stray dogs among youngsters. Graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures, Giada is working as consultant, involved in web-based dissemination of farm animal welfare documents and publications.
Adriana Saldarriaga
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Adriana Saldarriaga has written directed and produced documentaries and investigative journalism programs for over twenty years. Her ethnographic interests in filmmaking have brought her to look for a more experimental approach to journalism. She is currently engaged in the creation and development of a series of podcasts for FAO on Animal Welfare.
She started her career as a script writer for Mexican television writing on a variety of themes—the day of the dead rituals, medieval theatre traditions among the Taraumara Indians, Mexican colonial art, the caste system in colonial times. She worked as a foreign correspondent —as both a television reporter and producer— in New York City, primarily with QAP Noticias, a newscast owned by Nobel Award winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
She produced and directed an independent documentary, The Masked (Los Enmascardos), on youth violence and vigilantism in her native city of Medellin. The Masked received the best cinematography award at the Latino International Film Festival in Chicago (1996), as well as several other awards at other film festivals including Havana Film Festival (Cuba).
Ms. Saldarriaga has a Masters in Arts (1990) from the University of Southern California where she was a Fellow at the Center for International Journalism. Her emphasis is in visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking.Ms. Saldarriaga won two Emmy Awards and eighteen AP awards.
Samuel Zombou
Samuel Zombou joined the Veterinary Public Health (VPH) team at FAO in july 2010 and he's collaborating with the running of e-consultations and other VPH and animal welfare related activities. He was born in Cameroon and graduated in veterinary medicine in 2007 from the “Ecole Inter Etats des Sciences et Médecine Veterinaires de Dakar” in Senegal. His thesis title is “Contribution à l’étude du cinquième quartier des bovins à l’abattoir frigorifique de Bamako-Mali.”
Samuel also worked in Asendorf Germany for the Doehrmann Gbr cooperative in their Food Quality and Hygiene in Animal Production Department. He later returned to Senegal and worked for the “Clinique vétérinaire” mainly dealing with small animals and poultry farms while also treating cattle and pets.
Samuel then studied for a Masters in Veterinary Public Health at the Dakar University. He later joined the Brighton University branch in Dakar where he was an assistant tutor in biostatistics.
Samuel also worked as a Food Quality and Purchasing Officer based in Dakar for Horizon Catering – Bamako Senou Airport whose head offices are in Mali. He was in charge of purchasing and inspecting food commodities for catering and restaurant exports to Bamako (cheese, honey, jam, pork meat products, spices, corn starch, fish, etc.) while managing payment flows, stock, logistics and relations with custom authorities.
Samuel is now a graduate of the Master in Human Development and Food Security at the Università Degli Studi Roma Tre and has attended the Erasmus Intensive Program in food security for development funded by the European Commission in January 2010. He’s Master dissertation was on street food, food safety and food security in West Africa with an emphasis on the microbiological risks.
