Having to get mother to provide food (6)
I believe the answer is:
tomato
'food' is the definition.
(tomato is a kind of food)
'having to get mother to' is the wordplay.
'having' becomes 'to' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to get' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'mother' becomes 'ma' (ma can mean mother).
'to'+'ma'+'to'='TOMATO'
'provide' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tomato that I've seen before include "Fruit-vegetable" , "Salad plant" , "Salad fruit or berry" , "Fruit used in salads" , "Red fruit eaten as veg" .)