The latest issue of Fortune magazine devotes nine pages to an article about fears that falling oil prices might signal that the North Dakota shale oil boom is nearing its end.

Roy Cordato reminds us that the falling gas prices that cause concerns for oil companies represent good news for everyone else.

Gasoline and other petroleum-based fuels are an input into every production process everywhere, some more than others. For example, agriculture — from planting and harvesting to feeding and maintaining livestock to transporting agricultural products, sometimes from one part of the country to the other or around the world — is fuel-intensive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture describes agricultural production as “sensitive to energy costs” and notes that “higher energy-related production costs … generally lower agricultural output, raise prices of agricultural products, and reduce farm income.”

The opposite is also true. Lower energy costs will result in greater output, higher farm income, and lower food prices. This is welcome news in an inflationary environment in which food prices have been increasing at more than twice the inflation rate in general.

This relationship between lower oil prices, increased productivity, and lower overall prices is not only true of agriculture but also of industries across the economy. These prices affect not only gasoline and energy purchases but also the cost of all petroleum-based products, many of them an integral part of production activities — plastics and chemicals immediately come to mind. The lower the costs of these inputs, the lower the costs of production across the board, the greater the increase in output and job growth, and the lower the prices for consumers.