Yeah, learn to grow our own food - can't hurt right?
Except that organic food cannot sustain the population of the Earth. I've done research in to this: Organic farms are INCREDIBLY inefficient. If everyone shifted to organic farming, huge segments of the population would up and die of starvation because growing your own food isn't easy and it isn't as cheap as you think.
Okay, let's say everyone has their own garden for which to grow food. Do you actually realize how difficult it is to maintain a large crop? Without proper equipment (which costs money to manufacture and maintain and fuel to operate?), it is VERY difficult to keep pests out, and to ensure that the crops grow well.
But let's say you can grow all your own food - can your neighbours? What if they have bad soil? What if they have a 9-5 job and CAN'T take the time out to grow and look after their crops? Farming is a serious business - it's not "Hey, take a few carrot seeds and put em into the ground!" You might be able to grow your crops successfully once - that doesn't mean you always will or that your neighbours always will. That is why we need large, multiple farms because we need safeguards against drought, floods, bad soil and disease.
If you knew even a shred of history you'd realize that people in "ye olden days" didn't have it so nice. Starvation was a very, very real risk 600 years ago and a LOT of people died from it. If things really were so great and wonderful back in the primitive ages, why did we need to invent technology? If humanity truly WAS so happy and joyful back in the medieval ages, why is it that the population of Earth increased from just over 1 billion, to very nearly 7 billion now, in the space of only a few decades? Back in the 1950's, the Earth's population was a grand 3 Billion. Back in the 1900's, it was over 1 Billion. Over 250,000 years of human civilization, using "traditional farming methods" only got us to 1 Billion, but NOW, with SCIENCE we have extended the human lifespan to the amount that we now have nearly 7 billion on this earth. Science, Engineering and Modern Agriculture have done more to save human lives in 50 years than all the stupid ancient farmers managed to do in over 250,000 years, and that's an indisputable FACT. There exists NO OTHER explanation for the massive population increase. You can argue that over-population is a problem, and I agree with you, but you can't argue with the fact that modern agriculture and science has given humanity more than it has ever had at any other period of time in history.
So no - we don't need to grow our own food. That is what the farm is for. Just like we don't need to skin our own animals to make leather clothes, agriculture has become a specialized practice. I've been eating modern food my entire life. I'm not sick nor do I have cancer, and neither does anyone I know.
As for the whole "Get us back to the gold standard" - why? Why is gold seen as something so valuable? You realize that intrinsically, gold is not the most valuable mineral on earth. Platinum actually has more industrial applications - so why not shift to the platinum standard? Gold is rare and shiny - it has a few industrial applications but on the whole, it isn't that useful. Neither is silver. People just declared that these minerals had value because they were used in jewellery.
Tying wealth to gold is just stupid, since there's far to wealth than gold. Wealth can be found in almost any material good, and sometimes in non-material things like information. It's a bit silly to say "I'm worth the amount of gold I have in my bank". I don't have a single gram of gold but I have a lot of material possessions and I have a wealth of knowledge in my brain that's worth more than gold.
This fascination with gold continues to perplex me - it's not, when you get down to it, really all that valuable. It's only people's PERCEPTION of gold that makes it valuable. Diamonds are rarer and even more valuable - why don't we shift to the Diamond Standard!? Because that would be stupid.
If you say that modern currency is worth nothing because it is based on perception, realize that gold is only valuable because of perception. Honestly, Uranium is worth more than gold. Coal is worth more than gold. Platinum has more industrial applications than gold.
