India's 'Surplus' Cattle Some Empirical Results C H Hanumantha Rao K N Raj, who has questioned the widespread assumption about the existence of a large surplus of livestock in India, raises the question whether given the amount of food available for maintaining cattle, a higher output is to be had by giving this food to a smaller number and raising their productivity or by distributing it over a larger number. He suggests that a firm answer to this question cannot be offered without much deeper investigation into the relative production functions.