The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is criticizing South Korea for stopping beef shipments from a Kansas meatpacker.

Ag Secretary Mike Johanns says Korean officials, in his words, ``invented'' a standard for imports.

South Korea suspended imports from Creekstone Farms Premium Beef
because authorities said they found a bone fragment in boneless beef.

Creekstone raises Black Angus cattle in Kentucky and slaughters them in Arkansas City, Kansas. Johanns says the shipment was seven tons of beef.

American beef shipments were cut off by mad cow disease in 2003. They resumed recently after lengthy negotiations with South Korea.

The country bought more than one billion dollars in beef products in the year before the ban. Only Japan was a bigger U.S. customer.