Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- France’s committee for agricultural risk management set the cost of losses from a drought this year for grassland and pasture at 241.7 million euros ($314.8 million), the Agriculture Ministry said.

The National Fund for Management of Risk in Agriculture will make full compensation payments to farmers for damages by the start of February, the ministry said in a report on its website today.

--Editors: Sharon Lindores, Claudia Carpenter

To contact the reporter on this story: Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net -0- Dec/16/2011 14:27 GMT