(Photo : New Zealand's Fonterra)

New Zealand's Fonterra, the world's largest producer of dairy products, has announced that it will open its second farming hub in China that will be populated with 15,000 cows in order to meet the rising demand for fresh milk in the country.

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The announcement came even as Fonterra is still recovering from what it claimed as false botulism alarm that resulted to the recall of some of its milk formula from China.

The second farming hub will be situated at Ying County in Shaanxi Province, Fonterra said, adding that it is actively looking for strategic partners for the said development.

Five Farms with 3,000 Cows Each

The planned farming hub will be composed of five farms with 3,000 cows each and will employ at least 500 persons, with at least 400 of them coming from the local community, said Fonterra in a statement to the press.

The farm hub, which is expected to produce milk starting June 2014, is part of the company's strategy to produce up to one billion liters of fresh milk for the Chinese consumers by 2020, said Fonterra Greater China and India President Kelvin Wickham.

300 Million Liters of Milk

When the new farm hub starts operating, Fonterra would produce a total of up to 300 million liters of milk annually. The company already operates one farm in Hebei Province.

Fonterra got entangled with tainted milk scandal in the mainland after some of its products allegedly were contaminated with the contaminants that cause botulism. But the New Zealand government clarified that a series of examination and laboratory tests showed that the Fonterra milk products were not tainted.

Fonterra Chief Executive officer Theo Spierings assured Chinese consumers that the milk products that were earlier identified as contaminated have already been pulled out from the global market. He said the Fonterra team in China is now working on the business as normal after declaring that the situation is already under control.