this failed to break the pattern of stagnation. It wasn't until the 1970s when there was massive public investment in agriculture that India became free of famine, although Roy is of the opinion that improvements in the market efficiency did contribute to the alleviation of weather-induced famines after 1900, an exception to which is the Bengal famine of 1943. Michelle Burge McAlpin has argued that economic changes in India during the 19th century contributed towards the end of the famine. The overwhelming subsistence agriculture economy of 19th century India gave way to a more diversified economy in the 20th century, which, by offering other forms of employment, created less agricultural disruption (and, consequently, less mortality) during times of scarcity. The construction of Indian railways between 1860 and 1920, and the opportunities thereby offered for greater profit in other markets, allowed farmers to accumulate assets that could then be drawn upon during times of scarcity. By the early 20th century, many farmers in the Bombay presidency were growing a portion of their crop for export. The railways also brought in food, whenever expected scarcities began to drive up food prices. Similarly, Donald Attwood writes that by the end of the 19th century 'local food scarcities in any given district and season were increasingly smoothed out by the invisible hand of the market and that 'By 1920, large-scale institutions integrated this region into an industrial and globalizing world-ending famine and causing a rapid decline in mortality rates, hence a rise in human welfare'. Cormac Ó Gráda writes that colonialism did not prevent famines in India, but that those famines (and others in Ireland) were "less the product of empire per se than the failure of the authorities of the day to act appropriately." He points out that the subcontinent was free of famine between the 1900s and 1943, partly due to the railway and other improved communications, "although the shift in ideology away from hard-line Malthusianism towards a focus on saving lives also mattered." He points out that, in India as elsewhere, records of famine become much more inconsistent the further one goes back in time. Causes The famines were a product both of uneven rainfall and British economic and administrative policies. Colonial policies implicated include rack-renting, levies for war, free trade policies, the expansion of export agriculture, and neglect of agricultural investment. Indian exports of opium, millets, rice, wheat, indigo, jute,