A system of renewal equations on a graph provides a framework to describe the
exploitation of a biological resource. In this context, we formulate an optimal
control problem, prove the existence of an optimal control and ensure that the
target cost function is polynomial in the control. In specific situations,
further information about the form of this dependence is obtained. As a
consequence, in some cases the optimal control is proved to be necessarily
bang--bang, in other cases the computations necessary to find the optimal
control are significantly reduced
