SUMMARYThe object of this paper is two‐fold. First, an attempt has been made to show that under certain specific circumstances a livestock production system can be raised to a higher level of output by slaughtering some of the animals. Second, it has been then shown that given a free say to exchange and clearly defined preference scales of the consuming coalitions, this policy is strongly Pareto‐wise optimal. Finally the attention is drawn to the relevance of the policy to the problem of scarcity of food in India. It is suggested that India could do well by slaughtering of its animal populat