By Kim Landers in Mississippi

For generations, fields of cotton have stretched across the Mississippi Delta, but now a crop once associated with slavery is on the decline.

Many farmers in Mississippi are switching to corn and soybeans, which are more profitable.

Ray Charles Plez is a farmhand now working on the Mississippi cotton farm where he was born.

"I was born here on Due West and I've come back here working. I've been working here now going on 35 years or something like that," he said.

"Mostly I drive the tractor, then do a little irrigation and run the dirt buggies."

The farm, called Due West, is owned by Mike Sturdivant Junior.

"I'm a fifth generation [farmer]. We've been farming since right after the civil war," Mr Sturdivant said.

His farm is north of the town of Greenwood, where a sign welcomes visitors to the "cotton capital of the world".

But in the Mississippi Delta, cotton is no longer king.

Mr Sturdivant used to plant up to 8,000 acres of his 12,000-acre farm with cotton. But this year he will plant just 2,000 acres of cotton.

"We want to continue to grow cotton, we'd like to see it grow," he said.

"But in the state of Mississippi we were up around 1.6 million [acres] at one time in the last several years and now we're down to less than 300,000 in this day.

"I think that Greenwood talks about the cotton capital of the world. Cotton used to be king but it doesn't seem to be that way right now."

The decline in the cotton crop is partly because of falling demand but mostly because of declining profitability compared with corn and soybean crops.

As a crop duster sprays for weeds in a nearby field, Mr Plez gets a little nostalgic for the times when cotton still ruled the Delta.

"For the last couple of years corn has taken over," he said. "Now you see it deteriorating, gone now."

Due West is one of the bigger farms in the area and Mr Sturdivant employs about 30 people.

He hopes there will not be any more rain before he plants the cotton.

"We just got through planting our corn. We're a little behind just because of the weather we've experienced this spring - wet, cold," he said.

"We're just starting to grow soy beans and we'll continue to do that probably for the next month, and we'll start growing cotton probably towards middle to end of this month of April."

As for Mr Plez, he is just glad to have a job.

"I'm thinking there's nothing else I could do except farm," he said.