The study was carried out in four divisions of Rungwe District of the Southern Highlands of Tanzania to investigate the effect of market access on market orientation of smallholder dairy farmers. Multistage and simple random sampling techniques were employed in selecting 120 dairy farmers in villages across four divisions of Rungwe District. Both descriptive and quantitative techniques were used in data analysis. The results revealed that more than 79% of the farmers had 'experience of more than 5 years in dairying and owned an average of three heads of dairy cattle including one milking cow. Market access as measured by traveltime and frequency of milk sales had respectively, 'a significant (P < 0.01) and highly significant (P < 0.001) influence on volume of milk sold per household. The amount of milk consumed per household was a highly significant indicator of farmers' failure to participate in dairy markets., On average, each household consumed an average of 2.7 litres of milk in excess of WHO recommended daily intake due to poor access to fresh milk markets with a range 1.2 - 6.0 litreslhh across the four divisions. Level of input use' demand was strongly and negatively influenced by the price of the input and distance to market. Lack of information and access to extension services ,also limited farmers' participation in dairy input and output markets. The findings from this study suggest that participation in dairy market depended on access to both in-put and output markets and years of experience in dairying.