Bangladesh is one of the countries most seriously affected by natural disasters, being chronically prone to floods, droughts and cyclones. This paper assesses the impact of natural disasters on foodgrain production at the national and regional levels during the 1973-90 period. It also evaluates the public policy response to natural disasters. The paper argues that the effect on production has not been severe at the national level because (a) shortfalls in production in affected regions is to a large extent compensated by above normal production in non-affected regions and (b) farmers try to make up the loss through above-normal production in the post-calamity season. The paper argues that the government responds to a natural disaster by importing foodgrains more than what is needed to mitigate the adverse effects, which inflates the public stocks and depresses prices in subsequent seasons. While this has helped case the short-term food security problem, it may have dampened farmers’ incentives to sustain the growth of foodgrain production in the longrun