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' suggests taking the first letters.
'has' becomes 'a' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The initial letter of 'mother' is 'm'.
'to'+'m'+'a'+'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" .)