...retirándole recursos locales y retirándole autonomía alimentaria y productiva a los agricultores.

...taking away local resources and taking away alimentary and productive autonomy from the farmers.

Captions 5-6, De consumidor a persona - Short Film

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BANNER PLACEHOLDER

The verb retirar has an array of meanings. Often, it means "to take away" or "to remove." Here, in Part 4 of the stirring documentary De consumidor a persona, we learn how farmers are having both their local resources and autonomy in food production taken away by multinational corporations.

Note that retirar is derived from the verb tirar ("to pull"), mentioned in this space just last week. As in English, the prefix re- can mean "back" in Spanish.

"¿Puedo retirar el plato?," a waitress in a restaurant might ask you at the end of a meal, referring to your empty plate. If you say yes, she'll take your plate back to the kitchen.

Here we have another use of retirar in Yago, a TV series from Argentina:

Señor... Usted no puede estar acá, se tiene que retirar.

Sir... You can't be here, you have to leave.

Caption 9, Yago - 10 Enfrentamientos

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At the same time, retirar can also mean "to retire" -- an English cognate that's easy enough to remember. But note that retirar's synonym jubilar is often used instead to describe the act of retiring from the workplace, as in Venezuelan Javier Marin's description of his dad's retirement:

Laboró como telegrafista con el... con el código morse y actualmente se encuentra jubilado.

He worked as a telegrapher with the... with the morse code and currently he's retired.

Captions 76-78, Javier Marin - Artesano Venezolano

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"Se encuentra jubilado," ("He's retired,") Javier explains in Part 1 of his chat with us about jewelry-making.

Coming to us from Spain, Constantino Cuenca tells us a little bit about his family's business:

Es una champiñonera tradicional que estableció mi suegro.

It's a traditional mushroom farm that my father-in-law established.

Y fue familiarmente. Y ya ahora claro pues, mi suegro ya se ha jubilado.

And already now of course well, my father-in-law already has retired.

Captions 6-8, La Champiñonera El cultivo de champiñón - Part 1

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BANNER PLACEHOLDER

"Retired people" are referred to as jubilados -- doesn't that sound like a happy state to be in? Yes, through shared Latin roots, jubilar is related to "jubilant" in English.

Macho, si sobreviven los jubilados, ¿no va a sobrevivir un pibe?

Dude, if the retirees survive, isn't a kid going to survive?

Caption 47, Yago - 7 Encuentros

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