Does Speculation of Futures of Food Commodities impact the Food Prices?

Does Speculation of Futures of Food Commodities impact the Food Prices?
Methodology
Overview of the design
Excessive speculation can sometimes be singled out as a possible factor that can be responsible for the fluctuations and volatility of the prices in commodities at different times of the year. It positively increases the energy prices that in turn results to the increased food and commodity prices since for the production of the commodity, energy must be a key factor to be involve. Volatility can generally be defined as the variances that are involved in assets returns, it cannot be directly observed. Since speculations are responsible for the fluctuations and volatility of the returns, we can therefore use a methodology that helps in analyzing this volatility.