Short answers, pulled from the story.
Landlessness is the quality or state of being without land, without access to land, or without private ownership of land. For the majority of landless people, the condition is inseparable from poverty and the inability to meet basic needs or grow their own food.
The landless rich are a minority of people who own no land yet possess enough capital to sustain themselves, such as wealthy individuals renting expensive apartments in major cities. For the majority of landless people, including the urban poor and those displaced by rural-to-urban migration, the absence of land is tied directly to impoverishment.
Colonialism displaced Indigenous peoples from traditional lands by denying their right to territorial sovereignty and enabling exploitative land management practices. Settler colonialism, corporate imperialism, war, logging, mining, and even conservation efforts have each contributed to this displacement, deepening social marginalization and chronic poverty.
The Day of the Landless is observed each year on the 29th of March. It was established by the Asian Peasant Coalition to raise awareness and advocate for land rights for rural workers across Asia.
The Landless People's Movement in South Africa, the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil, the 2020-2021 Indian farmers' protest, and the Asian Peasant Coalition are among the most notable. These movements formed in response to escalating corruption, discrimination, and exploitative labor conditions.
In agrarian economies, land is the primary source of income and employment, determining what one account calls 'economic solvency, social power structure, and hierarchy.' Without land, rural households are pushed into inconsistent, low-wage non-agricultural work with little capacity to break the cycle of poverty.