The consequences of famines, manifested in the form of short-run economic fluctuations, act as a good measure of the extent of vulnerability of a low-income agrarian economy like Bangladesh. Various hypotheses have been forwarded to “explain” famines, most of these seeking causes in natural disasters, food availability decline or fluctuations in “exchange entitlements”. The present study argues that these explanations, individually considered, constitutes an inadequate basis for analysing famines, and further contends that famines must be seen as simply an extension of poverty. Analysis of famines must therefore essentially emanate from various poverty-themes and the structure of the economy to which these themes may relate. The study attempts to make a prima facie case for the above approach, drwing largely from the experience of the 1974/75 famine of Bangladesh.