Wheat is all you need to sustain yourself. It only takes a few minutes with a watering can to get some wheat seeds up to 10/10/10, and then you can use crop sticks to clone them. I've got a 9x9 field of wheat and it's way way more than I need. You can probably get by with a lot less. (Personally, I'd love to see Spice of Life added to the pack to add some more challenge. Starving to death isn't nearly as much of an obstacle in AgSkies 2 as it was in the first one -- it really only happens if you don't pay attention to your food bar.)
As far as I can tell, the only way to get that ore is to mine the nether equivalent and then smelt it in a furnace for 2 regular ore.
Save 1 animal spawn egg until you can make a mfr spawner and safari net.
Culinary generators are great for the early game, especially if you have a wheat farm. Toast Sandwiches require only wheat to make (I wouldn't bother grinding the wheat into flour) and generate 32 rf/tick, which is more than enough for early automation.