Sold?

Genesis 41:56 says, “And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.”  How could the people of Egypt pay if they had no work farming?  Now, we know that during the flood season, which the Egyptians depended on to water and fertilize the soil, that the farmers worked building pyramids and tombs for the pharaoh but in a seven year famine to sell the stores of Egypt to the hungry sounds bad for the pharaoh and Joseph both.