<p>Enhancing food security is one of the top agenda globally (SDG 2) and in Tanzania it ranks high in the battle against hunger and poverty. However, the majority of small-scale farmers, including dairy cattle farmers, continue to face food insecurity. Initiatives to promote dairy cattle contract farming (CF) in order to improve food security have been enormous with a view that CF will provide access to critical inputs for enhancing productivity and markets for dairy outputs and, thus, raising smallholder dairy farmers income. Despite these initiatives, participation in CF among small-scale dairy farmers in Tanzania remains low. As a result, little is known on what drives or constrain participation in dairy cattle CF; and what effect on food security does participation in dairy cattle CF have. The present study addresses this lacuna of knowledge by analyzing the effect of dairy cattle CF on food security using rigorous analytical methods namely propensity score matching, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), as well as Cox proportional hazards and survival time regression models. This study fills such lacuna of knowledge by using cross-sectional survey involving 300 randomly selected small-scale dairy cattle farmers in Mbeya region, Tanzania. The study found that participation in dairy cattle CF is significant influenced by education level, household size, risk aversion, radio ownership, access to extension services, quantity of dairy cattle (herd size), use of improved dairy cattle breeds, use of artificial insemination (AI), use of veterinary treatment, and liquidity constraints related to vaccination. Also, the study revealed that participation in dairy cattle CF significantly increased household food expenditure and milk production, thereby contributing to improved food security. The study emphasizes on active promotion of the participation of small-scale farmers in dairy cattle CF as a means of increasing milk production and diversifying their sources of income, and hence, enhancing their food expenditure.</p>