To begin with, mother has to provide food (6)
I believe the answer is:
tomato
'food' is the definition.
(tomato is a kind of food)
'to begin with mother has to' is the wordplay.
'begin with' indicates taking the first letters.
'mother has' becomes 'oma' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The first letter of 'to' is 't'.
't'+'oma'+'to'='TOMATO'
'provide' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tomato that I've seen before include "It's also known as a love apple" , "A motto turned out to be fruit/veg" , "Also called the love apple" , "Love apple (archaic)" , "A motto turned out to be fruit or veg" .)