A: Hey there! Guess what? Japan's agriculture ministry just announced some good news about this year's rice harvest!

B: Really? What's the update?

A: They say it'll probably go up by around 660,000 tons compared to last year! That's a big jump!

B: Wow, that's great news for rice lovers like me! But I wonder why the increase?

A: Well, it seems that farmers switched from growing rice for animal feed and other purposes to producing more rice for us humans. And they got lucky with generally nice weather this year too.

B: That sounds promising! So, where will we see the biggest increase in harvest?

A: Fukushima is expected to have the largest increase at 62,700 tons, followed by Akita with 55,400 tons and Niigata with 48,000 tons.

B: That's a lot more rice for us! But wait, did they change something about how they measure the yield this year?

A: Yeah, they used different sieve mesh sizes to estimate the yields this time around. If they had kept the same ones as last year, the projected harvest would have been even bigger at 7.468 million tons!

B: Incredible! So, how does the yield compare to previous years?

A: The yield index is at 102 nationwide this year, which means it's higher than average. But even with all this extra rice, retail prices are still quite high.

B: I see. Well, let's hope the prices come down soon! Thanks for sharing the news!