I’m mostly interested in food. Like, how can people buy and trade wheat futures and then that determines the price of wheat.
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You have growers of wheat (farmers) and you have buyers of (flour mills, commercial bakeries, etc). Both sides want some security in terms of volume of product they can sell/buy as well as locking in a price. Just a farmer wants to know he can sell 75% of his expected crop at $X before he plants it, Nabisco wants some cost certainty for their production of cookies and crackers for the coming year. So a farmer sells futures contracts against their crop and wheat consumers buy contract. Investors/speculators can also buy contract and then re-sell them, for example buying at a lower price if they think a drought will hit, reduce crops, and send prices skyrocketing. Or maybe Nabisco sees a decline in cookie sales due to low-carb fad, and decides to sell contracts before demand causes prices to fall — and if prices fall they can always buy cheaper spot wheat.
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