Once Israel’s most famous export, hardly any Jaffa oranges are grown today, for reasons both political and agricultural. But one farmer in Northern Israel refuses to give up.

Chaim Tzehori pulls out his pocket knife to expertly dissect an orange–sweet, thick-skinned and oval-shaped. He proudly offers me the fruit of his labor as we visited in his orchard earlier this spring.

Some of his oranges dot the orchard floor, signaling the nearness of the season’s end. Chaim, now 87, planted these shamouti trees himself 50 years ago in 1965, and while he still climbs the ladders himself to harvest the fruit, he knows his time among the trees will someday come to an end, too.

But standing in the middle of the rows of