Cuba Looks Inward for Assistance in Financial Crunch : Caribbean: With reduction of crucial Soviet aid, the nation stresses a motto of recycle and reuse.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro is placing his trust in pigs, chickens and a farmer named Ramon to pull Cuba through an economic crisis sparked by a reduction in crucial aid from the Soviet Union.

El Mango farm, some 50 miles west of Havana, is putting to practical use the economic policies Castro’s government is counting on to get it through a “special period” of austerity.

The policy is to look inward and prepare for complete isolation by recycling and reusing everything.

At El Mango, that means big changes for 44-year-old farmer Ramon Cabrera and his son Joan.

Charcoal made from recycled wood is now used to power the tractors through a special device hooked up to the gasoline engine. Corn and sugar stalks are used for paper and other items. Parts of the stalks and corn not fit for human consumption is used in a new form of pig and chicken feed controlled and allocated by the government.

Virtually every part of the pig and every part of the chicken are in turn used for a variety of things--from industrial chemicals made from pigskin to sealants made from egg shells. The excrement of the pigs is in turn used to feed the fish in El Mango’s pond, which in turn are fed to humans. The excrement also goes back into the fields as fertilizer, completing the chain that Castro hopes to perfect.

A popular saying that Castro has drilled into the local mentality is: “Food for animals means food for humans.”

These are only a few of the drastic changes Castro has been implementing in the economy over the last few months.

Cuba is even experimenting with using pig excrement to power engines, said Cabrera, who for the last 24 years has worked on El Mango farm.

With a straw hat and no shirt, exposing a beer belly that hangs over his belt, Cabrera and his son go about their tasks on a sunny afternoon of feeding the pigs, tending the fields, feeding the fish and oiling the tractors.

“I’d rather be here than at home,” Cabrera said proudly.

Before about two months before, El Mango looked and functioned like any small Midwest farm of about 50 years ago. Now, methods designed to improve efficiency have given rise to new, concrete pig and chicken coops, and new irrigation systems fed by a charcoal-powered water pump.

“Out here, everyone works the same,” said Cabrera, who is paid the equivalent of about $40 a month, plus rations of food and clothing.

Cabrera said the pig feed, which he calls “Creole grain,” has near miraculous qualities that--as government officials have told him--not only improve the quality of the meat, but also the quality of the excrement, “which is very important.”

If discontent ever forces Castro out of power, it is not likely to originate from the rural population.

“People out here talk of hard times, but they never speak disfavorably of the Marxist system,” said April Cotte, a U.S. college student who recently spent two weeks doing church work on farms in rural Cuba. “People in the cities of higher intelligence levels are the ones who talk of discontent.”

At another nearby farm, administrator Orlando Perez Rodriguez toes the government line.

“The country is in a crisis right now,” he said, echoing a recent speech by Castro. “We don’t have a lot of oil. We are going through a special period. We have to prepare. We can expect isolation. The only ones Cubans will rely on are other Cubans. We will be even stronger.”

In the center of San Cristobal, the government has “recycled” a local high school into a part-time exhibit of the “special period” preparations.

Charts point to the 1,024,200 rifles that are being turned into 7,400 pieces of optical equipment. A lobster shell is tacked to a wall above a piece of paper that tells how it will be ground into food proteins and chemicals. Dental fillings will be ground into silver and used in paint and electronics. Used oil pipes and railroad track will be used to construct pig and chicken houses. Seeds from the higuereta tree will be used for brake fluid. Factories will be made from old ships.

Many of the programs are already under way. Others are still being planned.

At the entrance to the exhibition, a 10-feet-tall sign displays a quote by Castro: “We have to compete with our own products, with the quality that exists here to develop local crafts industries to offer the maximum quality for all that the tourist wants to buy.”

Boosting the tourism industry is also part of the plan for the special period.

Will it all work?

Western diplomats in Havana expressed mixed reactions.

“It’s a survival economy,” said one diplomat, pointing to the recent cuts in Soviet aid. “Castro is stockpiling. I think the economy could go downhill very, very fast, and that is when it (the government) will crack.”

Others were less drastic.

“One wouldn’t want to predict the fall of the regime over the next year or two, but for the first time, the regime’s invulnerability is being questioned,” a diplomat said.