Once they receive the required state licenses, Arizona farmers will soon begin planting commercial hemp under a 2018 state law that just took effect.
The state law allowing industrial hemp farming and processing was to take effect in August after state agriculture officials set up a licensing and certification program. But state lawmakers moved up the effective date of the state law to May 31 after the federal Farm Bill passed in December and legalized industrial hemp nationwide.
Brian McGrew runs the program for the department and said it is now reviewing applications and expects to begin issuing licenses this week. About 200 applications, mainly for growers and processors, had been filed after the official window opened on Friday. He said Wednesday that 35 of those are complete, including the fingerprint clearance card, and the number is rising daily.
FILE - In this May 23, 2018 file photo a farmer plows a dry and dusty cotton field in Phoenix. Arizona farmers will soon begin planting commercial hemp under a 2018 state law that just took effect once the state issues required licenses. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin,File)
The emerging market for hemp, which contains ultra-low low levels of the THC that creates a high in marijuana, will be focused in Arizona on producing flowers and seeds that can be used to make CBD oils, said Randy Pullen, a former state Republican Party chairman and hemp processing company investor who helped set up a state chapter of the Hemp Industries Association. CBD oils are increasingly being used in foods and as pain relievers, as well as for other medical conditions.
Farmers can see a big profit boost over standard Arizona crops like cotton or alfalfa, Pullen said, netting $600 per acre compared with about $100 for standard crops like cotton.
"Economically it's much more profitable to plant and harvest hemp than it is to plant and harvest cotton or alfalfa," Pullen said in an interview Tuesday.
FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2013, file photo, a woman stands in a hemp field at a farm in Springfield, Colo. In Arizona, farmers will soon begin planting commercial hemp under a 2018 state law that just took effect once the state issues required licenses. (AP PhotoP. Solomon Banda)
That estimate can vary widely though, based on federal studies of the crop done before the recent CDB oil craze.
The cannabis targeted for Arizona isn't the same variety as used to make hemp rope, but instead is a strain optimized to produce the most flowers and seeds to process into CBD oils and powders. After the flowers and their seeds are removed and processed, the remaining fiber can be used for animal feed, as a concrete strengthener or as insulation, among other uses, Pullen said.
Farmers and others involved with hemp, including those who harvest, transport and process it, must hold state licenses issued by Arizona Department of Agriculture and get fingerprint clearance cards. Licenses start at $150 for harvesters and transporters and go to $1,500 for a grower and $3,000 for a processor. Fees per acre or per ton of processed material plus testing fees are added on and licenses can be renewed annually.
The department does not know how many acres may be planted in hemp this year because a farmer may show his entire holdings as a potential growing area. Once planted, the plots will be marked with signs showing it is industrial hemp.
The National Conference of State Legislatures says more than 40 states have established industrial hemp cultivation programs.
Pullen said he won't be surprised to see hemp displace some of the cotton grown in Arizona if the market takes off as some studies have suggested. The state saw about 175,000 acres planted in 2017, federal figures show.
"Probably half of that will be hemp in a few years," he said.
That's not likely, at least in the first years, said Kevin Rogers, executive vice president with the Arizona Cotton Growers Association. Farmers, a notoriously careful lot, will be cautious about switching to a crop without an established market and buyers stepping up to contact for crops.
"These guys have investments in land, in machinery, in everything that it takes to keep their farms going year after year,' Rogers said of cotton farmers. "A guy may try five acres of it, but it's way pre-mature. It's great that there's a new crop that we can look at, but it's in the infancy stage for us."
One concern for growers is pushback from medicinal marijuana producers who worry that hemp will cross-pollinate with their marijuana strains. Arizona medicinal marijuana is grown in greenhouses, but any hemp plant within 10 miles could threaten the industry.
"They are very worried about that," Pullen said. "We've seen that across the country."
There are no state rules on how close hemp can be grown to greenhouses where medical marijuana is farmed, McGrew said.
Iran eased some restrictions on its people and, for the first time in days, allowed them to make phone calls abroad via their mobile phones on Tuesday. It did not ease restrictions on the internet or permit texting services to be restored as the toll from days of bloody protests against the state rose to at least 646 people killed.
Although Iranians were able to call abroad, people outside the country could not call them, several people in the capital told The Associated Press.
The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said SMS text messaging still was down and internet users inside Iran could not access anything abroad, although there were local connections to government-approved websites.
It was unclear if restrictions would ease further after authorities cut off all communications inside the country and to the outside world late Thursday.
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This came a day after the European Parliament announced it would ban Iranian diplomats and representatives.
“Iran does not seek enmity with the EU, but will reciprocate any restriction,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X on Tuesday.
He also criticized the European Parliament for not taking any significant action against Israel for the more than two-year war in Gaza that has killed more than 71,400 Palestinians, while banning Iranian diplomats after just “a few days of violent riots.”
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel said he summoned Iran’s ambassador to the Netherlands “to formally protest the excessive violence against peaceful protesters, large-scale arbitrary arrests, and internet shutdowns, calling for immediate restoration of internet access inside the Islamic Republic.
In a post on X, Weel also said the Dutch government supports EU sanctions against “human rights violators in Iran.”
The United Nations human rights chief is calling on Iranian authorities to immediately halt violence and repression against peaceful protesters, citing reports of hundreds killed and thousands arrested in a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks.
“The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop, and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement Tuesday.
Alluding to a wave of protests in Iran in 2022, Türk said demonstrators have sought “fundamental changes” to governance in the country, “and once again, the authorities’ reaction is to inflict brutal force to repress legitimate demands for change.”
“This cycle of horrific violence cannot continue,” he added.
It was also “extremely worrying” to hear some public statements from judicial officials mentioning the prospect of the use of the death penalty against protesters through expedited judicial proceedings, Türk said.
“Iranians have the right to demonstrate peacefully. Their grievances need to be heard and addressed, and not instrumentalized by anyone,” Türk said.
Finland’s foreign minister says she is summoning the Iranian ambassador after authorities in Tehran restricted internet access.
“Iran’s regime has shut down the internet to be able to kill and oppress in silence," Elina Valtonen wrote in a social media post Tuesday, adding, “this will not be tolerated. We stand with the people of Iran — women and men alike.”
Finland is “exploring measures to help restore freedom to the Iranian people” together with the European Union, Valtonen said.
Separately, Finnish police said they believe at least two people entered the courtyard of the Iranian embassy in Helsinki without permission Monday afternoon and tore down the Iranian flag. The embassy’s outer wall was also daubed with paint.
Iranian security forces arrested what a state television report described as terrorist groups linked to Israel in the southeastern city of Zahedan.
The report, without providing additional details, said the group entered through Iran’s eastern borders and carried U.S.-made guns and explosives that the group had planned to use in assassinations and acts of sabotage.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the allegations.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate hailed people who have “long warned about this repression, at great personal risk.”
“The protests in Iran cannot be separated from the long-standing, state-imposed restrictions on girls’ and women’s autonomy, in all aspects of public life including education. Iranian girls, like girls everywhere, demand a life with dignity,” Yousafzai wrote on X.
“(Iran’s) future must be driven by the Iranian people, and include the leadership of Iranian women and girls — not external forces or oppressive regimes,” she added.
Yousafzai was awarded the peace prize in 2014 at the age of 17 for her fight for girls’ education in her home country, Pakistan. She is the youngest Nobel laureate.
The French Foreign Ministry said it has “reconfigured” its embassy in Tehran after reports that the facility's nonessential staff left Iran earlier this week.
The embassy's nonessential staff left the country Sunday and Monday, French news agency Agence France-Presse reported.
The ambassador remained on site and the embassy continued to function, the ministry said late Monday night.
Associated Press writer Angela Charlton contributed from Paris.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believes the Iranian government is in its “final days and weeks,” as he renewed a call for Iranian authorities to end violence against demonstrators immediately.
“If a regime can only keep itself in power by force, then it’s effectively at the end,” Merz said Tuesday during a visit to Bengaluru, India. “I believe we are now seeing the final days and weeks of this regime. In any case, it has no legitimacy through elections in the population. The population is now rising up against this regime.”
Merz said he hoped there is “a possibility to end this conflict peacefully," adding that Germany is in close contact with the U.S. and European governments.
The Israeli military said it continues to be “on alert for surprise scenarios” due to the ongoing protests in Iran, but has not made any changes to guidelines for civilians, as it does prior to a concrete threat.
“The protests in Iran are an internal matter,” Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin wrote on X.
Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear program over the summer, resulting in a 12-day war that killed nearly 1,200 Iranians and almost 30 Israelis. Over the past week, Iran has threatened to attack Israel if Israel or the U.S. attacks.
Mobile phones in Iran were able to call abroad Tuesday after a crackdown on nationwide protests in which the internet and international calls were cut. Several people in Tehran were able to call The Associated Press.
The AP bureau in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was unable to call those numbers back.
Witnesses said the internet remained cut off from the outside world. Iran cut off the internet and calls on Thursday as protests intensified.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the latest death toll early Tuesday. The agency relies on supporters in Iran to cross-check information.
The agency said 512 of the dead were protesters and 134 were security force members.
More than 10,700 people have been detained over the two weeks of protests, the agency said.
This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdownon the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)
This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdown on the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)
This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdown on the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)
Protesters hold up placards and flags as they demonstrate outside the Iranian Embassy in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Shiite Muslims hold placards and chant slogans during a protest against the U.S. and show solidarity with Iran in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Activists carrying a photograph of Reza Pahlavi take part in a rally supporting protesters in Iran at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Protesters burn the Iranian national flag during a rally in support of the nationwide mass demonstrations in Iran against the government in Paris, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
People attend a rally in Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Boris Roessler/dpa via AP)
A picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is set alight by protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
