B1 · Intermediate
12 min
foodconflictenvironmentpoliticshistory
El Campo que Sangra: Nigeria, los Bandidos y la Comida que No Llega
The Field That Bleeds: Nigeria, Bandits, and the Food That Never Arrives
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
So there's a story out of Nigeria this week that I think most people scrolled right past, and I think that's a mistake.
Bueno, sí.
Well, yes.
En el estado de Kaduna, en el norte de Nigeria, un grupo de bandidos atacó varias iglesias durante los servicios de Semana Santa.
In Kaduna state, in northern Nigeria, a group of bandits attacked several churches during Easter services.
Nigerian security forces ended up rescuing 31 people who had been abducted.
At least five people died.
And this happened, as Octavio said, during Easter services.
Mira, este tipo de ataque no es nuevo en Kaduna.
Look, this type of attack is not new in Kaduna.
La violencia en el noroeste de Nigeria es constante, y la mayoría del mundo no presta atención.
Violence in northwest Nigeria is constant, and most of the world pays no attention.
Right, and that's exactly what I want to dig into today, because the reason this connects to food is something most coverage completely misses.
Es que Kaduna es una zona agrícola muy importante.
The thing is, Kaduna is a very important agricultural zone.
Los agricultores de esta región producen comida para millones de personas en Nigeria.
Farmers in this region produce food for millions of people in Nigeria.
And when bandits move in, farmers move out.
Or they stop farming altogether.
Which means the food stops.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Muchos agricultores no pueden trabajar en sus campos porque tienen miedo.
Many farmers cannot work their fields because they are afraid.
Abandonan sus tierras y van a las ciudades.
They abandon their land and go to the cities.
So before we go deeper, let me ask you something basic.
Who are these bandits?
Because in the Western press they just get called bandits, which tells you almost nothing.
A ver, el término bandido es simplificado.
Well, the term bandit is simplified.
Hay grupos criminales organizados, pero también hay pastores nómadas armados que tienen conflictos con los agricultores por las tierras.
There are organized criminal groups, but there are also armed nomadic herders who have conflicts with farmers over land.
The herder-farmer conflict.
I've reported on versions of this across the Sahel.
It's one of the most underreported crises in the world.
Los pastores Fulani, que son nómadas, necesitan mover su ganado por grandes distancias.
The Fulani herders, who are nomadic, need to move their cattle across large distances.
Pero los agricultores también necesitan esas tierras para cultivar.
But farmers also need that land to grow crops.
And historically, these two groups coexisted.
There were traditional arrangements, informal agreements.
What changed?
Bueno, varias cosas.
Well, several things.
Primero, el clima.
First, the climate.
El Sahara avanza hacia el sur cada año, y hay menos tierra disponible para todos.
The Sahara is advancing southward every year, and there is less land available for everyone.
The desertification of the Sahel.
The Sahara is genuinely expanding, and it's pushing populations south into territories that are already occupied.
Y segundo, las armas.
And second, weapons.
Después de la caída de Gadafi en Libia en 2011, muchas armas llegaron al Sahel.
After Gaddafi's fall in Libya in 2011, many weapons flowed into the Sahel.
Los pastores que antes tenían palos ahora tienen fusiles.
Herders who previously had sticks now have rifles.
That is such a critical piece of context.
The collapse of Libya flooded the entire region with weapons, and it changed the nature of these disputes permanently.
La verdad es que un conflicto que antes terminaba con negociaciones ahora termina con muertos.
The truth is that a conflict that used to end with negotiations now ends with deaths.
Y con pueblos destruidos y campos abandonados.
And with destroyed villages and abandoned fields.
Here's what gets me, though.
Nigeria is actually one of the largest agricultural producers in Africa.
It has extraordinary potential.
Fertile land, a huge labor force.
Sí, Nigeria produce muchos alimentos importantes: mandioca, ñame, sorgo, arroz.
Yes, Nigeria produces many important foods: cassava, yam, sorghum, rice.
Es uno de los mayores productores del mundo de mandioca.
It is one of the world's largest producers of cassava.
Cassava.
The great survivor crop.
Drought-resistant, grows in poor soil.
Half of sub-Saharan Africa eats it in some form every day.
Pero cuando los agricultores no pueden ir a sus campos, no hay cosecha.
But when farmers cannot go to their fields, there is no harvest.
Y cuando no hay cosecha, los precios de la comida suben mucho en los mercados.
And when there is no harvest, food prices rise significantly in the markets.
And Nigeria is already dealing with brutal inflation.
Food prices in Lagos were up something like forty percent last year.
People are genuinely struggling to eat.
Mira, cuando viví en Londres, conocí a muchos nigerianos.
Look, when I lived in London, I met many Nigerians.
Y todos me hablaban de cuánto costaba la comida en Nigeria en esos años.
And they all told me how much food cost in Nigeria in those years.
Era una crisis silenciosa.
It was a silent crisis.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
There's a phrase I heard in Abuja years ago that stuck with me.
A market vendor told me: hunger in Nigeria doesn't make the news because Nigerians are too proud to show it.
Es que el problema tiene raíces muy profundas.
The thing is the problem has very deep roots.
Durante el período colonial, los británicos crearon fronteras que ignoraron los territorios tradicionales de los pastores.
During the colonial period, the British created borders that ignored the traditional territories of the herders.
The colonial borders question.
It's almost a cliché at this point, but that doesn't make it less true.
The British drew lines on maps that made geographic and administrative sense to them but zero cultural sense to the people living there.
Los Fulani, por ejemplo, vivían y trabajaban en un territorio muy grande que hoy es Nigeria, Níger, Mali, Camerún.
The Fulani, for example, lived and worked across a very large territory that today is Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Cameroon.
Las fronteras cortaron sus rutas tradicionales.
The borders cut their traditional routes.
So you take a nomadic people, cut their migration routes with international borders, then add a shrinking Sahel and an influx of weapons, and you have a food crisis that nobody designed but everybody made possible.
A ver, también hay otro factor importante.
Well, there is another important factor too.
El gobierno nigeriano no tiene suficiente presencia en estas zonas rurales.
The Nigerian government does not have enough presence in these rural areas.
No hay policía, no hay servicios básicos.
There is no police, no basic services.
The state absence problem.
I saw this in so many places I reported from.
When the state doesn't show up, someone else does.
And it's usually not someone you want.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Y los grupos criminales organizados aprovechan esa situación.
And organized criminal groups take advantage of that situation.
Controlan los mercados locales, controlan las rutas de transporte de comida.
They control the local markets, they control the food transport routes.
Which means food doesn't just stop being produced.
It stops moving.
You can have a harvest forty kilometers from a city and the people in that city can still go hungry because nobody can safely drive the truck.
Bueno, esto es algo que la gente en Europa o en América no entiende bien.
Well, this is something people in Europe or America don't understand well.
La logística de la comida es tan importante como la producción.
Food logistics are just as important as production.
Completely.
I spent three weeks in South Sudan back in 2012, and there were areas with food surpluses and areas with active famine separated by maybe a hundred miles of road that nobody could use safely.
La verdad es que Nigeria enfrenta también el problema del cambio climático directamente en la agricultura.
The truth is that Nigeria also faces the problem of climate change directly in agriculture.
Las lluvias son menos predecibles cada año.
Rainfall is less predictable every year.
The extraordinary thing is that Nigeria has made serious investments in agriculture in the past decade.
There were real improvements in production.
And then security collapses and it unravels faster than it was built.
Mira, hay una parte de esta historia que me parece muy importante para los oyentes.
Look, there is a part of this story that I think is very important for listeners.
Cuando pensamos en la comida, pensamos en el supermercado.
When we think about food, we think about the supermarket.
Pero detrás de cada producto hay personas que trabajan en condiciones muy difíciles.
But behind every product there are people working in very difficult conditions.
That's a point worth sitting with.
A kilo of cassava flour in a Lagos market is not just an agricultural product.
It's the result of someone deciding it was worth the risk to go out and farm that day.
Y cuando esos agricultores no pueden trabajar, el problema no termina en Nigeria.
And when those farmers cannot work, the problem does not end in Nigeria.
Los precios de algunos productos suben en toda la región de África Occidental.
The prices of some products rise across the entire West Africa region.
Look, the thing that keeps me up at night about this region is the population numbers.
Nigeria is going to be the third most populous country in the world by mid-century.
The food system has to scale enormously, and it's currently going in the other direction.
Es una situación muy seria.
It is a very serious situation.
Y la solución necesita tres cosas al mismo tiempo: más seguridad, más inversión en agricultura, y una respuesta al cambio climático.
And the solution needs three things at the same time: more security, more investment in agriculture, and a response to climate change.
Three things that are each independently difficult and that feed into each other.
You can't fix the agriculture without the security.
You can't fix the security without addressing the climate drivers.
I mean, it's a real knot.
Bueno, pero la historia de Nigeria no es solo una historia de problemas.
Well, but Nigeria's story is not only a story of problems.
Los nigerianos son personas muy resilientes.
Nigerians are very resilient people.
Sus mercados de comida son increíbles, llenos de energía y creatividad.
Their food markets are incredible, full of energy and creativity.
That is genuinely true.
The markets in Kano, in Port Harcourt, the food culture in Lagos.
There's real richness there.
It would be a shame to reduce this country to a crisis bulletin.
La verdad es que la comida nigeriana merece mucho más atención en el mundo.
The truth is that Nigerian food deserves much more attention in the world.
El jollof rice, el egusi, el suya.
Jollof rice, egusi, suya.
Son platos con mucha historia y mucho sabor.
These are dishes with a lot of history and a lot of flavor.
The suya.
Spiced grilled meat on a stick, eaten at night by the side of a road from a vendor with a small charcoal grill.
I have genuinely dreamed about it.
Mira, y el jollof rice nigeriano tiene una rivalidad famosa con el jollof rice ghanés.
Look, and Nigerian jollof rice has a famous rivalry with Ghanaian jollof rice.
Es una batalla cultural que los africanos toman muy en serio.
It is a cultural battle that Africans take very seriously.
[laughs]
[laughs]
[laughs] Right, and that kind of cultural pride in food is exactly why this matters beyond statistics.
These farming communities in Kaduna aren't producing commodities.
They're sustaining a culture.
A ver, esto es algo que siempre digo.
Well, this is something I always say.
Cuando destruyes la agricultura de un pueblo, no destruyes solo la economía.
When you destroy the agriculture of a people, you don't only destroy the economy.
Destruyes la identidad, la tradición, la memoria de ese pueblo.
You destroy the identity, the tradition, the memory of that people.
So thirty-one people were rescued from bandits in Kaduna this Easter.
Five people died.
And the story underneath is a food system under sustained attack, a climate in crisis, and a state that struggles to reach its own territory.
That's the real headline.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Y espero que los oyentes de hoy piensan en esto la próxima vez que ven una noticia de Nigeria.
And I hope today's listeners think about this the next time they see a news item about Nigeria.
Es un país de 220 millones de personas con una historia muy compleja y muy rica.
It is a country of 220 million people with a very complex and very rich history.
Well said.
And on that note, let's talk about the Spanish you heard today before we let you go.
Bueno, hoy usamos palabras importantes: cultivar, cosechar, ganado, pastores, frontera.
Well, today we used important words: to cultivate, to harvest, livestock, herders, border.
Son palabras muy útiles para hablar de agricultura y de conflictos por la tierra.
These are very useful words for talking about agriculture and land conflicts.
And one I want to flag, because it surprised me when I learned it.
The word for harvest in Spanish is cosecha.
But the verb to harvest is cosechar.
Clean, logical.
I appreciate when the language does that.
Sí, y para los que aprenden español, recuerden: cultivar significa trabajar la tierra para producir comida.
Yes, and for those learning Spanish, remember: cultivar means to work the land to produce food.
Es diferente a cocinar, que es preparar la comida.
It is different from cocinar, which is to prepare food.
The field and the kitchen.
Two different vocabularies, both essential.
Thanks for listening to Twilingua, and we will see you next time.
Hasta la próxima.
Until next time.
Y coman bien.
And eat well.