In 2009, the World Food Programme imported humanitarian aid to about 5.9 million people in Sudan.

The conflict-stricken nation is one of the organization’s largest projects. Civil war and ongoing violence have destroyed the country’s infrastructure and uprooted its population. That makes sustenance farming virtually impossible and leaves millions facing starvation.

But as food aid stamped with the World Food Programme’s logo is shipped to Sudan, thousands of tons of wheat and rice are shipped out.

This food won’t end up on the world market. It has specific destinations: Riyadh, Beijing and Seoul to name a few. That’s because 840,000 hectares of Sudanese farmland is currently leased to the governments of Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea. They use it for the sole purpose of feeding their growing populations.

Still, Sudan isn’t able to feed itself.

“We have millions of acres of land, very flat and unspoiled and it hasn’t really been even explored yet,” Sudan’s Minister of Finance Tarek Shalabi told Bloomberg in December. “Sudan is a very good place for agricultural investment.”

Land grabbing, as it’s called by opponents, is a new phenomenon. Since 2007, the Gulf States as well as wealthy Asian nations have bought land across the developing world to grow food staples and ship home. But, many of the countries from which they are buying are not food secure themselves.