Sorry folks, got busy and off the forum for a while.

As was stated by others, speculators buy "and Store" crops to make money in the future. In this way consumers are helped because when we go to buy bread there is not a shortage just before harvest. It is available year round and the speculators flatten out the price bumps between harvests.  How this helps farmers was explained but I hope you can see that as consumers, our current needs as well as our future needs are taken care of by speculators who are happy to store and sell food to us year round.