and cotton were a key component of the economy of the British empire, generating vital foreign currency, primarily from China, and stabilising low prices in the British grain market. According to Mike Davis, export crops displaced millions of acres that could have been used for domestic subsistence and increased the vulnerability of Indians to food crises. Martin Ravallion dispute that exports were a major cause of the famine, pointing out that trade did have a stabilizing influence on India's food consumption, albeit a small one. The Odisha famine of 1866–1867, which later spread through the Madras Presidency to Hyderabad and Mysore, was one such famine. The famine of 1866 was a severe and terrible event in the history of Odisha in which about a third of the population died. The famine left an estimated 1,553 orphans whose guardians were to receive an amount of 3 rupees per month until the age of 17 for boys and 16 for girls. Similar famines followed in the western Ganges region, Rajasthan, central India (1868–1870), Bengal and eastern India (1873–1874), Deccan (1876–78), and again in the Ganges region, Madras, Hyderabad, Mysore, and Bombay (1876–1878). The famine of 1876–1878, also known as the Great Famine of 1876–1878, caused a large migration of agricultural laborers and artisans from southern India to British tropical colonies, where they worked as indentured labourers on plantations. The large death toll—between 5.6 and 10.3 million—offset the usual population growth in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies between the first and second censuses of British India in 1871 and 1881 respectively. The large-scale loss of life due to the series of famines between 1860 and 1877 was the cause of political controversy and discussion which led to the formation of the Indian Famine Commission. This commission would later come up with a draft version of the Indian Famine Code. It was the Great Famine of 1876–1878, however, that was the direct cause of investigations and the beginning of a process that led to the establishment of the Indian Famine code. The next major famine was the Indian famine of 1896–1897. Although this famine was preceded by a drought in the Madras Presidency, it was made more acute by the government's policy of laissez faire in the trade of grain. For example, two of the worst famine-afflicted areas in the Madras Presidency, the districts of Ganjam and Vizagapatam, continued to export grains throughout the