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Sustainable growth of the animal industry depends upon the development of best nutrient management practices that maintain profitability for farm operations while minimizing environmental impact. The new EPA effluent guideline for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) requires the development of comprehensive nutrient management plans. Addressing this need, a project team at Washington State University and the University of Idaho has developed a computer program package titled Comprehensive Animal Nutrient Management System (CANMS), for use as a decision support system for dairy farm nutrient management. Based on a systems approach, CANMS includes the animal, crop, waste, and soil subsystems within a whole farm. The decision support system takes into account nutrient transformation and incorporates within it optimization techniques that allow for the evaluation of different alternatives under given environmental constraints. This decision support system can be used to develop technically sound, economically feasible, and site-specific nutrient management plans.