It’s been a funny sort of week. I had one frantic day back in the office after 10 days’ leave, then down to Edinburgh for a high profile event on the ‘Life and Culture of the Highlands and Islands’ at the prestigious Royal Society of Edinburgh.

This packed and exhausting day-long programme of presentations had been prompted by the RSE’s study into the ‘hills and islands’ of Scotland—which was given that slightly odd title because it took account of the Southern Uplands as well as the area which HIE covers.

Now, I know less than I probably should about farming, so I was stunned—as I think many in the audience were—to discover that the average annual subsidy to a sheep farm is in the region of £24,000. For a farm raising both sheep and cattle that sum can rise to £45,000. Now, nobody can deny that farmers are having a very hard time, and that livestock numbers are reducing, but £24,000 is more than the total budget which HI~Arts has for the year for its grants to individual artists, writers, musicians and performers across the Highlands and Islands.

Imagine if every working artist, musician, writer, or actor, got even a fraction of that amount - even just 10% - as an annual grant. Not just the cultural life, but the whole economy of the Highlands and Islands would be utterly transformed.

As a colleague said as we left the meeting, he’d been present at a historic moment, the start of the ‘artists before sheep’ movement. And wouldn’t the countryside be the better for the lack of all those nasty little droppings…

Two days later, back in Inverness, I was part of a fascinating discussion in Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s offices on the vexed question of Youth Migration. How do we attract back the ‘lost 20,000’ aged between 16 and 30? Among lengthy and often passionate discussions around the issue of jobs, quality of life, and what would give young people a sense of being valued, no one once mentioned sheep farming.

A hundred and fifty years ago the sheep drove out the local populations. Why do we need to assume they have to be there forever? Why do we think that the arts don’t deserve at least as much subsidy as farmers? Artists before Sheep! Time for a logo, I think...