Vegetable supplier Lincolnshire Field Products (LFP) has been ordered to pay more than £200,000 in fines and costs after a farm manager was killed by a forklift truck.
Peter Barney, 58, was walking from his car across the yard at Middle Farm in Moulton Seas End when he was struck on 31 October, 2010.
LFP, of Wool Hall Farm, Spalding, was fined a total of £165,000 and ordered to pay £39,500 in costs after pleading guilty to two breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
An investigation found the company did not have effective measures in place to allow vehicles and pedestrians to move around the site safely.
Lincoln Crown Court heard that Barney, who had worked for the firm for 38 years, was making his way to a potato grading shed when he crossed the path of a forklift being driven by a farm employee. He died at the scene of the incident after being crushed by the vehicle.
Safety consultants had carried out a risk assessment in 2003, which highlighted the need for pedestrians and vehicles to be segregated, but the firm did not fully implement these findings.
Workers were allowed to park their cars in areas of the site, which meant they walked across the path of workplace vehicles when walking to their cars. Some workers used the same entrance to the grading shed as the forklift trucks.
HSE inspector Neil Ward said Barney would still be alive today if LFP had taken effective steps to keep employers safe.
He said: “Employees on foot were using the same doorway as the forklift truck, which meant there was a significant risk of them being struck.
“The company should have managed the yard so that people and vehicles were not sharing the same space. Sadly, Mr Barney lost his life because this simple procedure wasn’t in place.”
HSE figures show that agriculture has one of the worst fatal accident incidences of any major employment sector, and the worst among the major industrial sectors including construction.
Agriculture is responsible for between 15 and 20 per cent of fatalities to workers each year.
In the ten-year period from 1999 to 2009 a total of 436 people were killed as a result of agricultural work activities, an average of 43 each year, or almost one per week.
Transport, or being run over or crushed by vehicles, was responsible for 26 per cent of agricultural fatalities between 1999 and 2009.
Other causes included falling from a height, struck by falling objects, drowning and livestock-related fatalities.
