An apparatus and method for profit maximization and risk mitigation that uses nutrition modeling of animal, poultry and marine animals is a critical component of the respective enterprise optimization and managed environment pollution control. The optimization accuracy depends on the description of utilization efficiency of nutrients in a population of animals. Utilization efficiency of nutrients for meat production in a population are preferably based on at least three component parts of nutrient utilization, i.e., maintenance, linear gain, and non-linear gain, instead of one only. Efficiencies for maintenance and linear gain are fixed value(s), but nutrient efficiency is a result of intra-population variation and efficiency of linear gain, and affect profit. Similar processing is performed to obtain optimal crop growth and profit. Finally, one or both of the animal-growth optimization and the crop-growth optimization are combined with a profit-maximization and risk-mitigation processor to provide information for a decision maker.