The countryside was also experiencing social upheaval. The rabassaires - peasants who exploited the land for the life of the vine, at which point their contract with the landowner was dissolved - aspired to owning the land they worked. In July 1922, the Catalan Union of Rabassaires and other Farm Growers was set up, drawing its membership from amongst the tenant farmers and smallholders and becoming the most important farmers' union until 1939. It defended small family rural operations against the large landowners, who were members of the Catalan Sant Insidre Institute, one of whose founding members was Lluís Companys.