Economic sustainability of small ruminants production in semi-arid areas of Lebanon.

Small ruminant production in the near east region is facing serious constraint of feed availability. A study was conducted in marginal areas of Lebanon, using a cost-benefit analysis technique (CBA), to assess the feasibility of four small ruminant production systems ranging from semi-nomadic to settled. When the owned labor cost was included as an opportunity cost in the economic analysis, CBA revealed negative returns in all four systems. Only the settled system was profitable according to the financial analysis excluding labor cost. Moreover, feed expenses if coupled with grazing costs represented a major constraint to profitability. To remedy to the feed deficit problem, the potential of using agro-industrial by-products as feed block supplements was investigated. Simulated feed block diets, using the most available by-products, provided a better nutritive value per unit cost than hand-fed diets used in the systems studied. Preliminary analysis showed that the use of feed block diets could improve the economic sustainability of small ruminant production systems.