The Legacy of "King Cotton"

The fields were recently cleared of wheat and soybeans, and just one long row of cotton, which Shelton, 65, said he planted "for memory."

"I wanted to say I planted cotton every year," said Shelton whose property includes the 40 acres his ancestors acquired in the late 19th century, not long after the abolition of slavery.

When asked about slavery, Shelton said: “No, we don’t talk about it. I remind my daughters the times haven’t been like this always. We haven’t always been free. I’m sure they understand it and know it."

With cotton prices near their lowest in six years, Shelton is far from alone in cutting back on the crop.

U.S. farmers this year planted the fewest acres of cotton since 1983, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. In the southern states of Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas, once the heart of cotton country, growers expect to harvest some of their smallest crops since the year after the U.S. Civil War ended.

It's not just low prices driving down cotton planting. This year marks the first the U.S. cotton farmers are getting by without a subsidy program that had long been the subject of a trade dispute between Washington and Brazil.

For Shelton, the only one of eight siblings to go into farming, that is just the latest in a long line of hits his business has taken.

"One thing I've found lately is it's become an expensive business," Shelton said.

Many of the United States' remaining 18,000 cotton farms - a number that's fallen by half in less than 20 years - see themselves on the losing end of that long skirmish at the World Trade Organization.

Washington paid $300 million to Brazil to settle the subsidy squabble and agreed to stop subsidy payment programs to cotton farms. The farm law that passed last year phased out payments to farmers of many crops, leaving growers more exposed to market conditions.

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Nutrition described the shift as "not your father's farm bill."

"The political climate has changed, that's hurt cotton's standing," said John Robinson, an agricultural economist with Texas A&M University. "The old world doesn't exist. That's gone with the wind."

It has left some farmers feeling exposed to low prices and the potential of rising debt levels, ultimately raising the prospect of further exodus from the fibre in areas where growers can grow food crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans.

Cotton has struggled to recover demand lost amid price spikes in the last decade, which drove consumers towards clothes made of other fibres, such as polyester and nylon.

Falling demand has also taken a toll, with global consumption down 9 percent from a peak of 122.5 million bales nine years ago.

Some cotton farmers have coped with the long slide in prices by planting ever more acres, following the lead of their Midwestern counterparts who plant corn and wheat, and eke out slightly more profit from larger-scale operations.

Ronnie Lee, of Dawson, Georgia, has taken the large-scale route. Since starting out farming 35 acres in 1987, he and now his three sons have steadily grown their operation to 30 times the size of Shelton's.

Today they plant some 9,000 acres of owned and leased land, as well as picking cotton for others with their three $600,000 mechanical pickers, operating a crop-dusting service and running a gin that will pack as many as 90,000 bales of cotton this year.

Despite the size, Lee emphasises that his business is still a family farm.

"We're a true family farming operation," he said during a rare lunch break on a recent rainy afternoon. "Why do I have to be small to be a family operation? A small guy today can't survive."