A quick search for "food speculation" through up several sites with explanations. This one seem fairly clear.

Basically, it seems that banks and other financial institutions are speculating on the future price of foodstuffs and this is driving up the price of basic foodstuffs so that people in poorer countries are cannot afford to buy basic foodstuffs and are being driven to starvation in spite of there being no real shortage of such foodstuffs.

Our beloved govt. being wedded to a more extreme form of the free market philosophy don't like regulated markets, it goes against their basic principles.