The commissionari receive goods either from middlemen or direct from producers, and are paid a commission of 10 percent from the latter and 8 percent from the former. Middlemen who buy goods from rural producers (often in advance of the harvest) and truck them to the city have declined in number. Some commissionari now act as their own middlemen, and producers, too, have changed their attitude. Once farmers were afraid to deal with city slickers, preferring to rely on a middleman whom they could regard as a friend. In doing so they traded higher profits for reduced anxiety. Today's young farmers are not so timid; they deliver in person to the market.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 552