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'.