Genesis 47:23
Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land.
During the famine the Egyptians sold their land and themselves to Pharaoh for food, so that Joseph had acquired both them and their ground for the king. This surrender of land and person grew out of the pressure of hunger, with the people yielding what they held in order to live. The Israelites stood apart from this transaction, for they had not sold themselves and their land in this way. They had instead been granted land because of Joseph's service to Egypt.
In this verse Joseph speaks directly to the people to tell them of that purchase, declaring that he had bought them and their land for Pharaoh that very day. Having made that fact plain, he then gives them seed for sowing. The seed was provided so that after surrendering their land to the king they could go on to cultivate it.