Agriculture and horticulture in Santa Clara County will suffer if county supervisors ax the county's 90-year fruitful partnership with the UC-Cooperative Extension that provides research and education to the community, said Willow Glen resident Nancy Garrison, the Urban Horticulture Program Coordinator.

Garrison, whose quarter-acre backyard is a microcosm of Eden, boasting 90 varieties of fruit, heads the UC-Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program. Garrison and other master gardeners in the program research which plant varieties grow best in this county and provide website information and classes for home gardeners.

Garrison, who has a personal mission to find the best apricot varieties that grow in local soil, said that cutting the program is "slamming the door and nailing it shut to horticulture and agriculture."

Besides the potential loss of 250 Master Gardener volunteers, plant sales of varieties not available in nurseries, the Master Gardener hotline, the Adult Education classes, gardening for inmates and assistance with school gardens, other valuable services would also disappear.

"I don't know what the 4-H kids will do," Garrison said. "And low-income families won't get nutrition and money management."

The UC-Cooperative Extension program in Santa Clara County also has 800 children involved in 4-H, 5,000 children below the poverty line who benefit from the nutrition program and 1,000 small-scale farmers who receive informational assistance.

"Most of them are ethnic farmers that we serve in their own language," said UC-Cooperative Extension County Director Maria de la Fuente. "These people don't have a voice."

But with Santa Clara County's financial squeeze requiring $238 million in reductions, some programs that are not life services have to be cut, said District 1 Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage.

"We're trying to save the entire program, but we're facing draconian cuts," Gage said. "People don't understand the bigger picture. The amount doesn't look like a lot, but we're already forcing 640 employees to retire and looking at laying off 1,000."

But the county is only paying $438,000, approximately 20 percent of $2.2 million cost to fund the UC-Cooperative Extension program. And in an effort to save an additional $237,000, the county is also offering to house the UC employees in county facilities next year. Pam Kan-Rice, the UC spokeswoman for the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources points out that the UC system pays the majority of the cost, $1.8 million, to maintain the program.

"We're committed to stay in Santa Clara County as long as the county can fund us," she said.

County officials say they are recommending the program's elimination because it is the only non-mandated program in the county's division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Santa Clara County Agricultural Commissioner Greg Van Wassenhove said he has to cut his $9.1 million budget by $422,000 and the $438,000 for the UC-Cooperative Extension Program is discretionary spending that is being considered first.

De la Fuente said it is her understanding that most items in the Santa Clara County budget are being cut anywhere from 5 percent to 25 percent, but the UC-Cooperative Extension program would be targeted for elimination.

And this is not the first time that counties have looked at cutting the service, de la Fuente said. San Mateo and Orange counties also considered eliminating the program during the last decade, but backed down. Currently, only Santa Clara and Sacramento counties are in danger of losing their agricultural partnerships with the UC system.

"The irony is once we are gone, it will be too expensive to bring back the services," de la Fuente said. "If they keep us to a minimum, we can grow."

County officials are trying to work with UC system to save the 4-H program because it only costs the county $38,000 per year, but the UC administrators are saying "all or nothing," Gage said.

Kan-Rice said the solutions aren't that simple. Each program can't be reviewed independently. All the UC-Cooperative Extension advisers work together, and the staffing is designed to overlap several programs.

Garrison said if the program vanishes and agricultural research is eliminated in a county once known as the Valley of Heart's Delight, "we roll out the red carpet for developers."

Garrison added that the only way to preserve the program and to enforce its value is for citizens to write their district county supervisor and Van Wassenhove.

"These communications make a difference," Garrison said. "I know they can save us."

Address letters of concern to District 2 Supervisor Blanca Alvarado and mail them to County Government Center, Tenth Floor-East Wing, 70 West Hedding St., San Jose, 95110.