But it has run into an obstacle from another family whose history may not be quite as illustrious as that of Thurn and Taxis, but which insists it has as valid a claim to the land.

Saatzucht Bauer GmbH is a family-run business that develops crop seeds, including wheat, oats and barley. The family has leased the 125-acre plot from the house of Thurn and Taxis since 1863, and says it has been planting and developing seeds there for six generations.

The princely house has sought to end the lease, and offered the Bauer family a choice of three alternative plots of land. But the company director, Berthold Bauer, is holding out.

“We are not some farmer who can be moved easily,” he told Mittelbayerische Zeitung newspaper.

The crops his company develops are of great value to farming, he argued.

“What we do is in the public interest. This can’t be done just anywhere, but only in certain places, with certain soils.”

Saatzucht Bauer markets its products on the family’s long history working the same land, and the company is demanding on a better replacement location.

With the sides unable to agree, the case is to be resolved at a special agricultural court in February.