The sixteenth session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA 16) was held from 30 January to 3 February 2017, at FAO headquarters, in Rome, Italy. CGRFA 16 endorsed the voluntary guidelines on national level conservation of crop wild relatives and wild food plants. The text of the revised draft version that was endorsed and will be published by FAO is available from the CGRFA web site.