Land use for alcohol production and its implications for food security: an assessment of the data (PREPRINT)

When analysing the land-use and food-security implications of alcohol production, it is essential to distinguish between crops used to produce alcoholic beverages and crops used to produce ethanol as a biofuel. Although ethanol is itself an alcohol, its use as biofuel is fundamentally different from its use in alcoholic beverages when assessing related land-use implications. Conflating these end uses can produce results that differ by an order of magnitude. Distinguishing between different end uses of agricultural crops therefore matters when assessing land-use trade-offs. Consulting the primary sources of the data used, where definitions and additional context may be provided, can help clarify the nature and scope of the data.