Annette Kennealy, 51, was founded with multiple wounds to the body on her land in Limpopo province. Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe, a police spokesman, said: “Family members tried to call her without success, until one of them went to investigate. “On arrival he found the deceased inside the house.”
The victim was staying with an employee on her farm in the town of Louis Trichardt when she was attacked.
A friend is said to have found her body lying in a pool of blood.
Ian Cameron, head of the Community Safety division of AfriForum, a group that represents the rights of the white Afrikaner minority, said Ms Kennealy had been attacked with a hammer and iron rod.
Ms Kennealy was a former councillor with the opposition Democratic Alliance party.
She was outspoken about farm murders. In her last Facebook post, she shared a link claiming that ten farm attacks, including one murder, had been reported in four days.
Police spokesman Col Moatshe said a 40-year-old man had been arrested.
He added: “The suspect will appear before the Louis Trichardt Magistrate Court soon.”
Attacks against South Africa’s white farmers are on the rise with some victims being tortured with electric drills, blowtorches and bleach, according to reports.
Research by Afriforum, a group which champions the rights of the country’s Afrikaner minority, released earlier this year said assaults on the farms shot up 25 percent last year.
And it warned the attacks against landowners were becoming increasingly brutal.
Afriforum spokesman Ernst Roets said there was a “racial element” to the violence with research showing only white farming families suffered such levels of savagery.