Saving the orange: Southern California's sweetest, juiciest navels are an endangered species. Bob Knight, a fourth-generation grower, is trying to change that

THE BEST-TASTING NAVEL ORANGES in the world just may be the ones grown in Southern California's Inland Empire. Here, in groves tucked up against the San Bernardino Mountains, a combination of warm days, cool nights, and dry, dry air produces oranges that balance sugar and acid to perfection: They're sweet but tangy. Inland Empire oranges are juicier and thinner-skinned than the ones you're used to. These aren't those pithy things you can eat while driving on the freeway without getting a single drop of juice on your slacks; they're lean-over-the-sink-to-eat oranges.

The groves also help nurture a landscape of unparalleled beauty. Stand in the middle of an Inland Empire orange grove in winter, when the trees are full of orange globes and the San Bernardino peaks are covered with snow, and you understand why the East Coast transplants who started the citrus industry here believed they'd found paradise.

But today taste and beauty aren't big considerations in the global economy. The big-box stores that purchase the lion's share of citrus shop primarily for price, and they can source from anywhere in the world. That's why, even if you live in the middle of the Inland Empire, the oranges in your supermarket are most likely from Australia or South Africa and not the grove next door. It's difficult for citrus growers to make a profit in this market, much less a living.

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Meanwhile, developers are offering ranchers small fortunes for their land. The Inland Empire counties of San Bernardino and Riverside are among the fastest growing in the nation. Groves are falling to homes and shopping centers at an alarming rate, and Inland Empire towns like Redlands are starting to look like everywhere else in the Los Angeles megalopolis. Which raises the question: Is there room, in the West of 2007, for sweet fruit and lovely landscapes?

Bob Knight is trying to stem the tide. He believes that, even in the 21st century, there's still a need for orange groves backed up against a Southern California mountainside. And locally grown oranges juicy enough to drip down your chin.

Knight grew up in Redlands--in fact, in the middle of a small family grove--but like ambitious small-town youth everywhere, he wanted a shot at the world beyond. He got it. His first job out of college was in Japan, where he met his wife, Aki Nakamura. Assignments in Jakarta and Saudi Arabia followed. The events of 9/11, though, brought him home--but not to the place he remembered. San Bernardino County's population had exploded while he was gone, from a little more than 900,000 in 1980 to nearly 2 million in 2005, and huge chunks of groves had disappeared.

Knight was flabbergasted. "If we don't do something soon, it will all be gone," he remembers thinking. "Citrus will be a distant memory like it is in Pasadena or Covina--only evident by a few street signs or a city seal." Knight decided to take action. He formed the Inland Orange Conservancy (IOC), a nonprofit organization with a simple plan: Bypass the global market by getting local oranges to local eaters directly, and in turn keep more of the profits in growers' pockets.

Here's how it works. For $65, a local signs up with the IOC to be a citrus supporter. Instead of getting a coffee mug, CD, or T-shirt, though, the premium is oranges: two 5-pound bags for every week of the harvest. Members can sign up for as many as three seasons, each about 14 weeks long. Professionals harvest and package the fruit, and Peels on Wheels, a small group of dedicated volunteers, distributes the oranges to coffeehouses, elementary schools, and other designated pickup spots.

Nakamura, one of those volunteers, likes watching new members turn from dubious to enthusiastic. "At first, they can't imagine how they're going to eat all those oranges," she says. But once they realize that at this price they can enjoy fresh juice daily, their misgivings disappear, she continues. Though the Knights are now citrus growers themselves (and Bob is fourth generation), Nakamura is still finding it hard to get used to such abundance; fresh citrus juice in Japan is quite a luxury.

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The IOC is off to a strong start. Knight attracted 1,200 members in 2005, the IOC's first year, and was able to support 24 small-grove owners like Dave Finfrock and Paul Rodriguez.

Finfrock is a third-generation citrus grower. The Mentone grove he owns was planted by his grandfather in the 1940s. Though the acreage has shrunk by half because of economic pressures, Finfrock hopes to hang on to the remaining 5 acres and pass them on to his daughters. Like the grandfather and uncle who owned the property before him, Finfrock is into citrus for love, not livelihood. "For growers like me, breaking even is enough," he says. That's getting harder, though. In fact, most small inland growers lose money one year out of three. Now that the IOC is buying a substantial portion of his crop, and paying at least three times what it would go for on the general market, Finfrock knows he can at least cover taxes and water. "I can live with that," he says.